My initial response to this comment by Spartan on the post about Richard Spencer being harassed while trying to use his gym membership and the gym’s response of kicking him out rather than his harasser was in part:
“A very clear and well-stated exposition of an unethical point of view that many misguided people agree with…thus imperiling our pluralistic society.”
It troubles me greatly that so many intelligent Americans are thinking this way in 2017.
Here is Spartan’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Dunce: Old Town Sport And Health in Alexandria, VA. Why? Because White Nationalists Have A Right To Work Out Too”:
This guy is a public figure and he will be recognized. He chose to be in the limelight. Gym members are allowed to quit their memberships because they don’t want to work out with an asshole. Now imagine (in liberal Old Town) that 75% of the members decide to quit their memberships at this gym because they don’t want to be around him. The business will now suffer.
I used to go to this gym, and I can tell you that I would not want to be around this man. So, although I would not circulate a petition or demand that the gym expel him, I would quit my membership. And, I probably would tell all of my friends why, so I imagine many of them would quit as well. Also, keep in mind that this gym is super tiny — you are pretty much forced to interact with other members.
In this scenario, the gym might end up closing because of lack of membership. So, this is trickier than you make it out in your hypothetical. I am not obligated, as a private citizen, to be polite or even silent around odious human beings. While I do not support a gym’s decision to terminate membership based on political (although I’m being generous here) beliefs, the fact is that people can vote with their feet.
As for the bakeries, housing, and all the other examples brought up here, they just do not apply. There is nothing wrong with me privately discriminating against someone for odious, unpatriotic, conduct. In fact, I might have a duty to do that — otherwise I am normalizing or silently accepting what they are advocating. It would be ethically wrong for me, however, to privately discriminate against someone for who they are, including skin color, gender, and sexual orientation. And even with these examples, market forces still apply. White flight happened all over this country beginning in the 1950s. No one could legally force my family to stay in Detroit. Dupont Circle in Washington, DC is a known gay-friendly residential area. Private schools pop up that are gender or religion specific. Then there is the whole red state/blue state phenomenon. People are segregating themselves like never before. Apparently gyms are next on the list.
Ethics Alarms 
Of course they can vote with their feet and terminate their membership just as a student can dis-enroll in a class taught by a particularly partisan leftist professor. We do not live in a Stalinist state, at least at present. Harassment of a stranger even if a pubic figure is totally unethical and could meet the criteria for assault if there is a threat of doing violence.
I see no difference between quitting a club because an alt-right advocate is a member there and quitting a country club because a Jew or an African American has been admitted.
Well, unless someone was born a Nazi advocating for the genocide of races the person deems “inferior”, that would be a huge difference. The Nazi has willfully chosen to be be a Nazi. Black people and Jewish people are born*.
But I don’t see why one wouldn’t pick a country club where the members were mostly Democrats or Republicans. Or vegans. Or were super into swimming. People often like to be around other people who share certain ideological beliefs that they deem important. Especially clubs. That’s part of the point of clubs, no?
Men in men-only clubs like to be around men, and races and religions and ethics groups also like to be with their own “kind.” We have made the correct decision as a culture that this self-segregation and exclusiveness is toxic to democracy and impedes liberty and access to human rights.
Not really. We’ve made the decision that forced segregation based on immutable characteristics/ethnicity is bad. But as long as we still have clubs, fraternities/sororities, 1st class seats, political parties, etc. we think that self-segregation, absent those factors, is just fine.
Religion isn’t immutable. We now know that gender isn’t immutable. “Immutability” is not the basis of those rights.
That’s why I included “ethnicity” which can include religion.
We have a trickier relationship with gender segregation. Sometimes it’s ok ( we don’t let men and women fight each professionally, even when they are in the same weight class, for example), but usually it is not. Even then, most transsexuals (if that is what you are referencing) don’t believe they can choose their gender, rather, they feel the wrong one was assigned to them.
“most transsexuals (if that is what you are referencing) don’t believe they can choose their gender, rather, they feel the wrong one was assigned to them.”
Not upset with you, Deery, but your comment struck a nerve.
I believe I am a half eaten burrito, every third Thursday, and you must refer to me as ‘Royal Grande.’ Can I demand my rights for free hot sauce? Why is their right to believe what they want greater than mine? Why do transgender feelings override my rights?
At my wife’s high school, a curious evolution has occurred. Being gay was trendy and cool, giving an outlet for teen angst for those so inclined to want the attention. Suddenly the coolness has lapsed: gays won their fight, and now folks shrug and ignore those seeking attention. Many of those who made a name for themselves as gay have since ‘decided’ otherwise. Some even married the other gender and have kids now. But wait! Now a boy can dress as a girl, and the attention returns! How brave they are! How mistreated have they been (since the beginning of time)! How dare you dictate what bathroom I use! I am special! Look at me!
Now, if this was such a great issue, with so many kids impacted, do you think it would have been secret up to now? Hardly! Teens cannot keep their mouths shut by nature, and we would have known about, for instance, all the girls who feel they are really boys over the years. And boys being smart (and horny) took about two seconds to figure out there is no downside to using the female locker room. Ridicule of their choice will be punished harshly and publicly, after all. And they can change their minds later without repercussion. No surgery needed, or that can be a ‘plan for the future’ which they never intend to complete. The result is a lot of locker room pics being circulated of innocent girls in states of undress that the school has to deal with.
Notice the problems with boys who feel ‘pretty’ who are suddenly winning medals at the girls’ competitions. How is that fair or inclusive? The UIL (scholastic governing body of sports) in Texas wants the legislature to allow them to prevent students from participating in sports on any team other than one for the gender on their birth certificate. Why? Boys who could not compete in, say, basketball, are suddenly the stars on the girls’ teams. Those teams win more games. This impacts attention from colleges, as scholarships are won or lost on the way to State Finals. Girls who otherwise could attend college are supplanted by boys pretending to be girls.
I feel that even if a boy had the requisite surgery (penis removal, etc.) the distribution of muscle and testosterone changes little, still giving them a competitive advantage. The growth is already done, in most cases. The girls are the victims of this progressive madness.
This is the EXACT opposite of the intent of Title IX which liberals fought so hard to get in the first place.
Now, if this was such a great issue, with so many kids impacted, do you think it would have been secret up to now? Hardly!M
The existence of trans people is hardly a “secret;” the concept has existed in numerous cultures for centuries, it was just shunned by most of them.
And boys being smart (and horny) took about two seconds to figure out there is no downside to using the female locker room.
The downside, I would think, would be having to deal with all the problems that come from publicly identifying as trans. Do you have any examples of boys actually doing this? I would think the ones most likely to think “Cool, I get to pretend to be trans to see naked boobies” would also be the ones most likely to not want to deal with the bullying, social stigma, etc. that comes with it.
Chris,
I hear of this at the dinner table quite a bit. The boys tend to get away with it since disciplining a ‘trans’ requires intestinal fortitude our schools lack. They take great strides to avoid media exposure such a case would draw.
Are you saying you’re hearing about boys who are not really trans, but are pretending to to get into the girls’ locker room?
I believe you if you say you’re hearing this…but it seems very unlikely to me. Are you sure the reports you’re hearing are accurate?
…since my wife teaches there… yes
Fascinating.
Do the students in question present as female?
Yup
I need to add, they have been told that what they did was a crime, and their parents brought in… but no charges. These boys will revert to being boys when it suits them, and it is pretty obvious. Not like they are wearing makeup or anything. Still dress ‘teen,’ not boy or girl.
Jack wrote: “Men in men-only clubs like to be around men, and races and religions and ethics groups also like to be with their own “kind.” We have made the correct decision as a culture that this self-segregation and exclusiveness is toxic to democracy and impedes liberty and access to human rights.”
The ‘real error’ was in allowing people, or factions within the political and social system, to sell a *new* point of view on these issues and to force a *conversion* of people and culture and institutions based on sophisticated guilt-slinging and false appeals to higher idealism.
All of this is in the process of being re-examined and, I suggest (as I have often said) that our societies, especially in Europe and America, are now beginning to articulate counter-arguments, philosophically-grounded, reasonable and articulate, which will influence people to think and see in clearer and better terms.
The decision that was made culturally in the postwar was made under duress, and there is also the influence of Marxist operatives, communist ideology, and the infection of Christian culture and philosophy with these hyper-idealistic notions. Most of it came about through a social emotionalism and it was not, in my opinion, thought about coldly and intellectually.
The issue, now, is that in America the damage has been done. When once it was a 90% European nation which held to this identity because it believed in it and saw the good sense of maintaining that identity, now and as a result of emotional decisions, social engineering projects instigated by people with dubious intentions, the mind of the culture has been infected at this emotional level and finds it very hard to think in clear, honest and intelligent manner about these issues and questions. I think that stats now indicate that the 90% white demographic is not close to 67% and ‘the browning of America’ is now occurring. The *nature* of the culture is shifting, some see a decided decline, and in any case the eventual result will be the further reduction of the white demographic. One could, I am sure, debate the good sense of all this, yet in fact one cannot: It is a forbidden conversation. If a European-descended person, inside themself, thought such thoughts he or she would definitely self-censor the thought, as likely everyone on this blog will do or has done (and is doing). If someone (me for example!) suggests anything different, the group itself is obligated to attack that person and opinion and throw all the worst possible names at them, and as we know the very worst is ‘Nazi’ (etc.) It is group-think translated into group-attack. Yet I will certainly admit that in a calm and cool environment people who hold to your-plural opinion on these questions do have an argument. I mean, such an argument in favor of a race-blending civilizational project can be made. But just as that is so, so too the opposite argument can be brought to bear against it.
The hardest part, in my own view, is to reconcile a ‘race-realist’ perspective with Christian and Catholic doctrines. But that is really an involved topic. Too much to go into.
So, I will suggest, and people who think like me will suggest (as Richard Spencer does articulate very carefully and very reasonably) that the wrong decisions were made. That we now live in the result of those wrong decisions and, lo and behold, the social structures are now showing fracture and strange forces of dissolution show themselves. Yet no one, or few anyway, can allow themselves to see, understand and describe how this has come about, and the effect it is now having and will have on the political and social structure of the Nation. It is a hard thing to say, and perhaps harder to support with argument, but I have thought, and others who think like me believe, that what we are living in now — this decline, this decadence, this cultural corrosion — is a result of Sixties politics and strange, emotionalized *ideology’.
How to reverse that? How to reformulate a sound ideology that is not at the same time cruel or mean-spirited but self-preserving? That of course is the question. Richard Spencer, Greg Johnson, Jared Taylor and many others both in America and also increasingly in Europe are examining these profound and very important questions from a cultural, religious and philosophical perspective, and they do it as honest, upright and decent persons.
People who think in the limited terms that you-plural articulate cannot, and will not of course, actually read what they write, and so they are turned into mere evil men in your presence and of course are labeled ‘Nazi’ (et cetera).
The first order of business is to establish a platform within European identity and to learn how to reclaim it, re-inhabit it if you will, and to believe in it. That is a process of recovering identity and justifying oneself to oneself. But it has to be built on the right platform and not built on anger or hatred — very much the opposite in fact! It is actually built on love and respect for oneself, one’s people, one’s cultural and civilizational achievements. This work must be undertaken.
At this point, and of this I am 100% sure, I can successfully argue my ideas, my ideals, my ideological and philosophical (and spiritual) points against anyone, anywhere and on any forum. I can do this because I am ethically and morally in harmony with myself.
The Evil Richard Spencer tells his tale of his encounter with the Weird Sister:
And there would be outrage if this happened. Okay to discriminate based on politics, but not on race, gender, or religious affiliation? This is where the progressives are taking us.
That’s already the law in most places, and has been for decades, Elizabeth.
This is where the progressives are taking us.
It has its origins in metaphysical shifts. It is essentially a metaphysical question. It is a movement in thinking which destroys the notion of hierarchy and of difference. One can surely trace the influence of the French Revolution. And then one must begin to examine the American Revolution as, also, such revolutionary project. If one wishes to understand ‘America’ and also ‘our present’ and where it is all tending, one has to trace it all back through the history of ideas.
If you destroy a relationship to an upper world (angels, God, higher intellect), and if you simultaneously close the Gates of Hell, you are left in a Middle World and have no conceptual tools to envision hierarchical structures. The sense of hierarchy and ‘The Great Chain of Being’ is pretty fundamental to understanding the Medieval background of our culture, and can easily be discerned in Shakespeare:
“Observe degree, priority and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office and custom, in all line of order;
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthroned and sphered
Amidst the other; whose medicinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans cheque to good and bad: but when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents! what mutiny!
What raging of the sea! shaking of earth!
Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
Then enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides,
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself …”
To understand ‘The Revolutionary Spirit’ and what it is doing in our world requires, I have discovered, a rather involved project of tracing how shifts in ideas have lead to shifts in social order and in all other categories.
‘The Progressive’ is a spirit (in a sense) that has infected all of us and into whose hands we are just putties being molded. The only way to combat it is to be able to see it, and to see what it does. And even then we are still so very much caught in ‘progressive currents’. It will take counter-revolutions in thought, and much social strife I suppose, to begin to see things in more clear terms.
I see no difference between quitting a club because an alt-right advocate is a member there and quitting a country club because a Jew or an African American has been admitted.
Then you need to see better. Seriously; this is a wild false equivalence.
Not wanting to be around someone who says Jews and African-Americans are inferior is NOT the same as not wanting to be around Jews and African-Americans.
I can’t believe I just felt the need to explain that…
You didn’t explain it, and you can’t. Both are bigotry. Both involve oppression because of what someone IS rather than what they DO in your presence. You just think that one form of oppression is OK. “His kind” applies to political membership as well as characteristics, and thinking that way is anti-American.
No, being a Ana I is not what someone is. It is something one makes a willful choice to do, not something that happens to randomly alight upon a person. In this country, one has to go out out their way to be a Nazi. One can choose to stop being a Nazi at any time quite easily. Can one stop being black?
Choosing to be a Nazi does tell other people quite a bit about one’s character; it isn’t bigotry for people to react based on that choice. Being black doesn’t tell you very much about a person’s character at all. This is pretty elementary here, so I can only surmise that you are being facetious.
I don’t think it’s facetious. I think it’s the end result of the very genuinely held idea that the left must always be just as bad as, if not worse than, the right, in all situations. So discriminating against a racist is no different than discriminating against a black person, and hating bigots is itself bigotry. It’s a false equivalence, but it’s one that has been deeply internalized.
This is a bad habit you have, Chris. Work on it. We have been talking about discrimination, not hate. There may be a rational reason to dislike bigots, but that does not justify discriminating against them by taking away their own rights. Moreover, anyone who chooses to hate a black man for being black has every right to do so, and if that individual does not discriminate against blacks, his emotional reactions are nobody’s business but his own. Hate itself is not unethical. Feelings are not unethical.
And the belief otherwise does appear to be a particular fallacy of the Left.
This is a bad habit you have, Chris. Work on it. We have been talking about discrimination, not hate. There may be a rational reason to dislike bigots, but that does not justify discriminating against them by taking away their own rights.
This is a non-sequitur. We were talking about choosing to quit a club because it had racists as members. This obviously does not violate anyone’s rights.
The original post was about a gym kicking out a racist because of his views. I agreed with you they shouldn’t have done that, but I don’t think it’s a violation of Spencer’s rights.
Moreover, anyone who chooses to hate a black man for being black has every right to do so, and if that individual does not discriminate against blacks, his emotional reactions are nobody’s business but his own. Hate itself is not unethical. Feelings are not unethical.
And the belief otherwise does appear to be a particular fallacy of the Left.
This is also a non-sequitur. No one found Spencer’s diary where he writes that his biggest secret is that he hates black people. We know Spencer is a racist because he advocates racist policies, and is an outspoken leaders of a racist movement. That is behavior, not just a “feeling.”
” The original post was about a gym kicking out a racist because of his views.”
Not exactly. He was kicked out of the gym because someone recognized him and caused a scene. There’s no indication that he made his racism evident to other gym goers by either speech or behavior. That would be grounds for cancelling his membership. Him thinking racist thoughts about the guy next to him at the weight rack isn’t. Other people at the gym are likely thinking similar thoughts, perhaps about race, perhaps ‘Who does she think she is, wearing that?’, or ‘Old people should just stay home’, all different types of bigotry. Should we find out who they are, and ban them as well? You can’t hear what people are thinking, but you can react to behavior. If any of my hypothetical gym goers said those things out loud (‘Get a load of that’ while pointing to an obese person, ‘ I’ve it Gramps, you’re wasting my time’) then yes, you can take action, report them to management. With no evidence at all that he espoused his views at the gym, it was wrong to cancel his membership.
So you do think it is fine to kick him out because of his beliefs, but only if he states those beliefs within the confines of the gym? Everyone is obligated to pretend that he did not advertise those beliefs outside of the gym? So if he carries around a sign right outside of the gym calling for minorities to be ethnically cleansed, neatly folds up the sign, steps inside, and changes into his workout gear, no one can say anything to him about that?
You have the right to your speech. But you also have the responsibility of the reactions to your speech, the good and the bad. I’m still a little amazed that people somehow think they can advocate and say whatever, and people aren’t allowed to react to that. Of course they can. For many people “ethnic cleansing” isn’t some airy hypothetical, but a real life threat that has happened before. You propose outrageous, odious things for other people to suffer, and there will be a lot of reaction. Of course. Freedom of speech has never guaranteed freedom from consequences. As much as liberals are derided for their “safe spaces”, this seems to be an even more childish version of that. “Just because I loudly, proudly, publicly advocate for the elimination of entire groups of people, people don’t want to hang around me anymore!” Yeah, well tough titties. No one forced you into that advocacy role, not all ideas are created equal, nor should they be treated as such. And people will vote with their feet.
Proselytizing and politicking of any kind in a gym is offensive. You tell him to stop, just as you tell someone blathering about carbon footprints, or black safe spaces on campus, or to give your life over to Jesus. The content doesn’t matter.
“So you do think it is fine to kick him out because of his beliefs, but only if he states those beliefs within the confines of the gym? ”
He’s working out, a solitary activity. He may not talk to anyone the whole time he’s there. How will anyone who doesn’t recognize him know he’s racist? Should gyms keep databases of local activists and refuse them gym membership? If he did stand outside and tick people off, they can always ask him to come another day, suspend him and then give him another chance. As the actual situation stands, he was working out, minding his own business, when the woman got in his face and caused a stink. He got booted because the gym was likely afraid of trial by social media. I guess what I’m driving at is people should be booted for conduct not unspoken philosophies. There’s no evidence anywhere that I can find that he was espousing his views in the gym.
Yes.
Deery wrote: “So if he carries around a sign right outside of the gym calling for minorities to be ethnically cleansed, neatly folds up the sign, steps inside, and changes into his workout gear, no one can say anything to him about that?
You have the right to your speech. But you also have the responsibility of the reactions to your speech, the good and the bad. I’m still a little amazed that people somehow think they can advocate and say whatever, and people aren’t allowed to react to that. Of course they can. For many people “ethnic cleansing” isn’t some airy hypothetical, but a real life threat that has happened before.
Here you see the same thing over again: You work to establish your label and force anyone who engages with you to use it. So, the first order of business is to stop the conversation right there are clarify the terms. But you will resist this effort tooth and claws because, in the absense of the most deadly label possible — founded in sheer emotionalism! — you will lose your *argument* insofar as you have one.
So, the ‘truth’ is the thing that is in question here. And the truth about Spencer is more interesting, more important, and more discussible, than any of your blather and your establishment of lies. And you do work within lies and these lies are the first basis of your argument!
To understand Spencer’s ideas requires getting familiar with them in their own form and unmodified and non-distorted by emotionalogues such as yourself. In fact, deerest Deery, you deal in lies, you start from lies. And that is OK to you because you see yourself as defending and articulating a higher principle. This is where the ‘progressive left’ begins to go wonky-doodles. In a straight-on argument, as in a non-emotional debate, you will lose and you will be seen as losing. Therefor, you must lie…
I will grant you that his ideas are difficult to entertain and think about, and maybe in the end they will prove impossible, yet they are very sound, well thought-through, footnoted and philosophically defensible. But the only way to even critique them is to actually take the time to read them!
No, being a Nazi is not what someone is. It is something one makes a willful choice to do, not something that happens to randomly alight upon a person. In this country, one has to go out out their way to be a Nazi. One can choose to stop being a Nazi at any time quite easily. Can one stop being black?
Choosing to be a Nazi does tell other people quite a bit about one’s character; it isn’t bigotry for people to react based on that choice. Being black doesn’t tell you very much about a person’s character at all. This is pretty elementary here, so I can only surmise that you are being facetious.
Oh My God. There you have it. The trick is to control the label, and once you have controlled the label and get all around you to see it that way, and talk about it in that way, you have done all the work you need to do! Which is to say no work at all!
In order to understand those, like Richard Spencer, who are examining and also countering the prevalent ideology of our day (‘Americanism’ I guess might be the term which, hooo boy, does require to be unpacked!). one has to actually read what they write and trace back with them how and why they began to think in these unpopular terms.
It very definitely involves a careful analysis of the 2 European wars and most especially the ideological constructs that emerged during the interwar period in Europe and the bizarre entente between Soviet Russia and the dominant and deciding power, America, in the aftermath of WW2. It is in point of fact a revisionist project! This must be understood, and this then becomes a starting point for a modified understanding of all that we see now in our present, both what is *good* and also what is *bad*.
To begin to even think in such terms (a revisionist project in the mind) will involve turning against emotionally-based notions of right and wrong and good and bad, and will involve deconstruction and dismantling of ideological constructs that have become fundamental to the Self, that is, to the ‘constructed self’ of our present. These are enforced ideas and involve social coercion.
You can, you really can! (Oh Happy Day! I bring you the Good News) undertake this project, and you can begin to see how these doctrines have formed you, and you can begin, consciously and intelligently, to countermand them. It starts in the intellectual world and will happen when the emotional constructs are seen through.
One thing that Spencer repeats — I think it makes sense — is ‘Race is real, race matters’. And it is completely obvious that this is so, but to think that thought requires a deconstruction process very difficult and demanding on the ‘sense of self’. Drop the emotionaism and the emotional constructs and begin to think and see in clear intellectual terms. It’s fun!
You can do it Deery! I’ll even volunteer to help you! 😉
I’m actually very familiar with race realists/HBD/neo-Nazi/evolutionary psychology/MRA/MGOTW/etc and how they all interrelate and intersect. Thanks for the offer, but I don’t need your help.
It was a joke obviously. And yet you do need help and very much of it. I would suggest, and I have suggested before, that you, Chris, Beth and many others who deal in simplified tropes — if only to become better at forming counter-arguments — definitely need to do more and better research.
I had to look up your alphabet soup slop. I wager that you do not have a background in Madison Grant and Lothrop Stoddard: the American exponents of race-realism. To understand the present but very under-developed American movement one has to go back to these foundations, and then to understand how the postwar (II) and the post-Sixties certainly have contaminated and confused national and ethnic identity.
All this must be reversed. It took 60 years to get us into this mess, and getting out of it will take many years of hard intellectual and social work. The Alt-Right, in the best of all worlds, is and should be an intellectual movement. The people who are doing that work are doing fine intellectual and historical work. People like you do no work at all!
You didn’t explain it, and you can’t. Both are bigotry. Both involve oppression because of what someone IS rather than what they DO in your presence. You just think that one form of oppression is OK.
Jack,
You originally said the following:
I see no difference between quitting a club because an alt-right advocate is a member there and quitting a country club because a Jew or an African American has been admitted.
Are you seriously arguing that quitting a club amounts to “oppression?” Even someone quitting a club because there are black members wouldn’t be “oppressing” anybody. They would simply be a bigoted asshole.
But quitting a club because you don’t want to be around people who hate black people is not being a bigoted asshole. It is a reasonable, fair choice.
I don’t understand your idea that it is only fair to judge people for what they do in my presence, and not for their beliefs. Judging someone for having horrendous beliefs is not bigotry.
“His kind” applies to political membership as well as characteristics, and thinking that way is anti-American.
No, it isn’t. Thinking that bigots should be punished by the government is anti-American. I can even see the argument that wanting private businesses like this gym to kick him out is anti-American. But voluntarily choosing not to associate with racists in one’s daily life is not anti-American. Bigots are owed the same constitutional protections they would prefer to deny others; they are not owed my time.
Voluntarily refusing to associate with someone because of one’s beliefs, as opposed to what one DOES, fails the Kantian standard as well as the Golden Rule. If everybody did it, and if society held that it was a appropriate, then only narrow sets of beliefs would permit someone to be a full participant in society. This is the phenomenon of social media users de-friending anyone who doesn’t join in the echo chamber. It is using shunning to suppress ideas, not conduct. Also it is really, really stupid: you don’t know what strangers are thinking. You would quit a club because a single member who works out quietly holds political positions you object to?
You dodged the question. I asked whether or not you really believe that quitting a club because you don’t like one of the members is “oppression,” which is what you said earlier; I’d appreciate if you’d clarify this for me.
Voluntarily refusing to associate with someone because of one’s beliefs, as opposed to what one DOES,
Again, we are talking about what Spender “does.” He openly advocates racist policies and leads a racist movement.
This is the phenomenon of social media users de-friending anyone who doesn’t join in the echo chamber.
Well, now this brings up another question: are you saying you wouldn’t de-friend someone for posting racist nonsense? Why not? De-friending someone for posting racist nonsense isn’t wrong; people have the right to decide what they do and do not want to see on their social media feeds, and if seeing racism day in and day out is an experience they find unpleasant, you’re saying they have a duty to suck it up and keep that person their social media friend? That’s absurd.
Also it is really, really stupid: you don’t know what strangers are thinking.
But we do know what Richard Spencer thinks about non-white people, because he tells us.
No one is suggesting we spy on people or try to trick them into revealing their hidden racism. Presumably we are all rational enough here to realize that we don’t need to grill every person we meet on their views about race. But we’re talking about a situation involving an outspoken leader of a racist movement, so your arguments here about not being mind readers do not apply.
You would quit a club because a single member who works out quietly holds political positions you object to?
It depends on what those positions are, as well as a whole host of other factors. If someone in the club is on record as saying all gay people should die, I might not want to be part of that club. But for me it would depend on what the other advantages of the club are. Still, I wouldn’t judge someone for seeing that as a dealbreaker. Especially if the quitter was gay themselves.
I was unclear, my fault. Two many threads.
Shunning people based only on what you know them to believe is unethical conduct, because if followed universally, it would divide society into conforming camps. Obviously one jerk professor quitting a sports club because someone whose view she dislikes works out there has no measurable effect on her target. However, it is shunning, and shunning based on a single belief rather than conduct. Thus it is unfair, and if the same rationale was adopted by everyone, it would constitute oppression.
I am informed by my experience with my first year law school room mate, who died in an accident the next year. He was a warm and generous human being, and a terrific friend. I knew, because we had many arguments about it, that he was also and anti-Semite and a racist. Yet he had many black and Jewish friends, because he treated everyone with the same respect and decency. In many ways, he was an ethical ideal: he had biases, ugly ones, yet they didn’t govern his conduct.
It sounds like he knew How Not to Be a Bigot, and it served him well. Sorry for your loss.
Everyone’s loss, I think. He was an ex-Marine, a handsome guy with character and charisma. I think he would have moderated his views (a lot followed him from the Irish-Catholic poor section of Philly) and run for office.
Shunning people based only on what you know them to believe is unethical conduct, because if followed universally, it would divide society into conforming camps.
I’m kind of OK with dividing society into Nazis and non-Nazis.
Obviously one jerk professor quitting a sports club because someone whose view she dislikes works out there has no measurable effect on her target. However, it is shunning, and shunning based on a single belief rather than conduct. Thus it is unfair, and if the same rationale was adopted by everyone, it would constitute oppression.
But Spencer was not shunned for a “single belief,” he was shunned for conduct. He is not like your friend, who you say privately expressed bigoted beliefs but otherwise treated people with respect; publicly advocating for segregated ethnostates is obviously NOT treating others with respect. He flat-out says that non-whites are not his equals. Spencer’s biases DO govern his actions; he spreads his hatred far and wide. This gym decided they didn’t want him to spread it there.
Now, since there’s no evidence he had any intention of doing so there, they probably acted wrongly. Generally, a business shouldn’t discriminate against customers for conduct they engage in outside of the place of business. But what if he was recruiting others into his Neo-Nazi movement in the locker room? What if black or Jewish gym goers felt threatened by this? Would the gym have a better case for stepping in then?
And I’m sorry, but I am not going to buy into any definition of “oppressed” which includes “People won’t talk to me because I say that black people are inferior.” That’s allowing victimizers to play the victim, and I won’t stand for it.
“I’m kind of OK with dividing society into Nazis and non-Nazis.”
Ducking the issue. Others are kind of OK dividing society into Republicans and Democrats, or abortion advocates and people who don’t believe in solving problems by killing tiny humans. How about religions that advocate killing non-believers, and whose more extreme members frequently do, and religions that don’t do that? Are you OK with that? Should people quit gyms that have Muslin members? How do you know what THEY are thinking?
“If you’re OK with socially shunning Nazis, you have to also be OK with socially shunning ethnic minorities or people of a different mainstream political party” is actually a convincing argument to me, Jack. Reasonable people can draw distinctions between those two stances.
It is completely misleading to be having a conversation where you use this term ‘Nazi’. You really need to fairly define the opponent and then conduct your discussion in fair, honest and upright terms.
One has to define the opposite of a ‘social progressive’. One has to define a person who can and does make distinctions — and value-choices — on the basis of race and cultural difference, and other differences too. One has to fairly come to understand these positions and the ideology that informs them.
When you fail to do that, you seem to create a straw man and then channel hatred or contempt at it. This will not in the end work out well for you because by doing that you are mis-characterizing your opponent. And in an idea-war, as in an actual conflict, that is definitely unwise. If you do not see your *enemy* correctly and accurate, your enemy has an advantage over you right there.
Chris writes: “Again, we are talking about what Spencer “does.” He openly advocates racist policies and leads a racist movement.”
A correction: Spencer advocates for white self-consciousness and a renewal of European cultural and also racial consciousness. He does not have ‘racist policies’ nor any specific positions (that I am aware of). His endeavor is best described as ‘consciousness raising’.
Now, yes, he is making headway against very very strong prevailing winds. The people who come out against him always come out with sheer emotional arguments. It is tragic but funny to watch it. It is sort of sad too. They come with silly signs, they scream, they interrupt, they disrupt, they moralize in the most maudlin terms!
But in my own view they do not construct sound arguments. Also, and this you are guilty of too, they completely and dishonestly reframe the positions into the ugliest and worst terms possible. It turns out to be a festival of open hysteria.
I believe and I certainly openly suggest that the arguments for developing race-consciousness are sound indeed. I very strongly advocate it for Europeans and European-descended. But I also advocate it for non-Europeans. Right there is a difference — a form of ‘liberalism’ really — which you cannot even see much less allow.
There is nothing at all wrong, morally or ethically, in having solid self-valuation and believing in oneself. Even in believing in oneself as better capable, or more serious, or more gifted and intelligent. There is nothing wrong in European people beginning to see themselves in these terms again, and in knocking down anyone who forces any other sort of disvaluation on them. But you will read what I have written, and when it passes through your grey material you will distort it, redescribe it, devalue it, and vilify it.
I will grant you that a wide-spread European identitarian movement will, of course, have consequences. And that is why, as a start, one must begin to visualize the consequences of the postwar race-blending project that was implemented in America. That is, the post-1965 world and its consequences in our present.
Depending on where one stands of course, different people will define those consequences differently. But at least one will understand that there are consequences to the choices we make, or those that are made for us by our Cultural Managers in the Social Engineering Project that describes ‘America’.
Once the conversation and its terms comes out into the open, and once *your side* stops arguing emotionally and using the vicious labels that are your stock-of-trade, then the actual arguments can be seen and understood. These are heavy issues, of that there is no doubt, and they require supreme seriousness. None of this is a joke and no important decisions can or should be made without fundamentally grasping the potential consequences.
“There is nothing at all wrong, morally or ethically, in having solid self-valuation and believing in oneself. Even in believing in oneself as better capable, or more serious, or more gifted and intelligent.”
Does that hold even if it’s not true? I would think an accurate picture of reality is more important than deriving self-esteem by assuming you and people from your cultural/regional/ethnic group are more skilled than everyone else.
You have focussed on the wrong thing and in the wrong way and you have misunderstood. Different people are differently capable. What one people will do or create, another people will never do or create. There are many factors at play in these differences, yet the differences are real indeed. Fact.
These differences function everywhere and in everything. I assume you are encumbered by false-notions derived from ideology that determines what you think or how you think about ‘difference’. For you (I guess) to think in such terms is a no-no, a problem, evidence of some *issues*. Not so for me. I feel it is crucial to see through these impositions and to be able to see clearly. I said:
“There is nothing at all wrong, morally or ethically, in having solid self-valuation and believing in oneself. Even in believing in oneself as better capable, or more serious, or more gifted and intelligent.”
Obviously, that would not hold if it were not true. Duh. Every person, and each people, have special gifts and talents. It is good and proper for any person and any people to come to see themselves in the clearest light, and to value what they are through self-understanding.
What you are on about … who knows? ;-P
“Obviously, that would not hold if it were not true.”
I took the “belief in one’s own superiority is good” statement at face value, and it’s not “obvious” to me which statements of yours I shouldn’t take at face value, since even the face value ones don’t always seem to make sense. Perhaps I’m not supposed to be taking any of what you say at face value, but if there’s a bigger context that I’m missing, there’s a huge communication failure here somewhere.
“Different people are differently capable. What one people will do or create, another people will never do or create. There are many factors at play in these differences, yet the differences are real indeed. Fact.”
Are you talking about individuals (“a person” or “people”), or civilizations/cultures (“a people” or “peoples”)? If the latter, I really want to know where you got that “fact”. You’re making an assertion that relies on counterfactuals and evidence of absence (e.g. that particular civilization would never have invented X on their own).
Even if the fact is true, why is it significant? What does it lead you to do? What it would lead me to do is study what factors give civilizations their different strengths, and help everyone replicate them to empower the world as much as possible. In other words, I want to use knowledge to help people surpass supposed limitations instead of reinforcing them.
Where did you get the idea that I am ignoring differences? I just haven’t heard you describe those differences in a coherent way, let alone provide any evidence for their existence. I could accept differences if given evidence, but your “oughts” don’t follow from that “is” (or “might be”). Did you read my “How Not to Be a Bigot” rules? They made their first appearance on the Zootopia post. My point was that in the presence of measurable, predictable differences between groups of sapient beings, we shouldn’t ignore those differences, but we also shouldn’t impose limitations on people’s productive potential that don’t need to be there, especially when we could remove limitations instead. Would certain differences mean we might have to live in separate societies? Sure, I could imagine such differences. Don’t go deciding on your own that that’s the best thing to do on Earth, though.
Once I share my superior philosophical culture with the world, most of its major limitations will dissolve. First, though, I must partake other people’s superior culture of industriousness. Did I mention I was arrogant? Or rather… solidly self-valuating?
…but if there’s a bigger context that I’m missing, there’s a huge communication failure here somewhere.
Undoubtedly. Each person comes to this conversation from different circumstances. The communication failure that happens is I really think (speaking generally of communication on-line) because of radically different situation and background.
Are you talking about individuals (“a person” or “people”), or civilizations/cultures (“a people” or “peoples”)?
Both. I start from ‘a person’ and then move on to ‘a people’. First, the individual. Then, the group.
Even if the fact is true, why is it significant?
It is true, and it is also obvious, and undeniable. I am happy that, at least, we have got that settled. The question of significance is a very good question. Once on has settled that things are significant, then one can go on to describe how so. My writing today has chiefly focused on defending European identitarianism. I see European identity as having come under assault. This has been going on for a good long time now. It has causes and reasons. They are *significant*. The consequences of that are relevant and meaningful. The significance of getting out from under that assault should not require explication. If you really and truly want me to write it out, I will.
What does it lead you to do?
Understand what has made me me. Understand causation. Notice it. Gain more knowledge. Learn to fight mentally and resist mind-control such as one encounters in a space like this among ideologically-programmed people. To deprogram should, by definition, be a ‘good thing’, shouldn’t it? Our object should be to see clearly, shouldn’t it?
I find getting out from under programming and mind-control to be a fascinating adventure! Once the ball of string begins to unravel, once the ‘red pill’ takes effect, whole new avenues begin to open up.
Once I share my superior philosophical culture with the world, most of its major limitations will dissolve. First, though, I must partake other people’s superior culture of industriousness. Did I mention I was arrogant? Or rather… solidly self-valuating?
Slightly weird too, but delightful according to your lights! 😉
Don’t get ahead of yourself. You haven’t coherently expressed what you feel the differences between various cultures are, let alone provided evidence for them.
Before you write out the assault on the European identity, please explain to me what characterizes that identity. Functionally, not historically, thank you. I don’t care where it came from; I know European history and it hasn’t told me what the identity is or why we want to keep it around. I just want to know what it is according to you. European is as European does, after all.
“I find getting out from under programming and mind-control to be a fascinating adventure! Once the ball of string begins to unravel, once the ‘red pill’ takes effect, whole new avenues begin to open up.”
It’s trivial to say that a belief leads you to resist being pressured to adopt contradictory beliefs. When I said, “What does it lead you to do?” I was referring to the avenues that have opened up. What are they? Obviously you think different thoughts, but how do you behave differently in an observable manner? I’m not ignoring the experiential aspect, but I want to get the full picture here.
Don’t get ahead of yourself. You haven’t coherently expressed what you feel the differences between various cultures are, let alone provided evidence for them.
And I won’t do that. That project will be for you to undertake. If you won’t do it then you will likely not arrive at a definition of ‘difference’ and all it can mean. What I can suggest is that most people I am aware of in the Alternative Right are very interested in this realm of knowledge, and they dedicate themselves to it. Again, the reason is because European identity is under assault. This, too, requires a certain amount of back-grounding but I am not interested in doing this work for you or proving this or anything else to you. I can suggest to you directions though.
Before you write out the assault on the European identity, please explain to me what characterizes that identity. Functionally, not historically, thank you. I don’t care where it came from; I know European history and it hasn’t told me what the identity is or why we want to keep it around. I just want to know what it is according to you. European is as European does, after all.
I would suggest to you that *your problem* is that you don’t care where you came from. If that is so, you cannot understand causality and, drunk — or stoned — as you may be on some ideological drug which is the foundation stone of whatever philosophy that allows you to avoid causal understanding, you will be able successfully to avoid all that hinges out of that causality. To understand European identity you have to understand Europe. Fact. If you cannot — or won’t — undertake that project (and I do assume you have all sorts of more-or-less New Agey reasons why not), you and I have no foundation on which to construct a conversation. My entire position is build on identity, on cultural matrix, in specific epistemology, in tradition and lineage. Modernity and especially postmodernity (I will suppose you are located there, an octopus living in a postmodern bottle!) abandons that imperative and performs numerous sophistic tricks to defend its quasi-position.
I do not separate function from history. Really, that is part of your problem: you seem to. And look where it brings you.
If you have some background in history and the study of ideas as well as what I consider the most important: ontological and metaphysical definitions; if you have looked into these things and cannot yourself tell me what is important in the definitions that arise from that, then again we have no basis for conversation nor understanding. But at the very least we will know, generally, why that is so. You are a creature with no ectoskeleton. You are pliable and perhaps you understand yourself as having no fixed identity nor even locale. Well, that’s fine, except that I see you as a manifestation of The Problem. You are just one of the outcomes of the destruction of identity, a postmodern casualty who yet desires to proselytize. You want to bring others into your vision and see it as a medicine of sorts. Yet I see it as a poison. In any case as an inhibitor.
It’s trivial to say that a belief leads you to resist being pressured to adopt contradictory beliefs. When I said, “What does it lead you to do?” I was referring to the avenues that have opened up. What are they? Obviously you think different thoughts, but how do you behave differently in an observable manner? I’m not ignoring the experiential aspect, but I want to get the full picture here.
Huh? Just focus on the intent in what I wrote and then you may be able to understand better. One aspect of gaining solid ground in identity may result in gaining skill and the tools to avoid social and emotional pressures, and doing that is, in my view, a very necessary step. You asked me a question about what I am led ‘to do’ and I answered plainly and clearly. If you don’t understand the answer, well, what can I do? The ‘avenues’ that interest me are, right now, pretty strictly idea-avenues. The most important thing or area is in the idea-realm.
There are two sides to this present conversation (I mean within this blog-post and the issues that have come up here). One is what this dread ‘Alt-Right’ and its sister the Nouvelle Droite does and thinks and proposes. That brings the conversation to bear on Richard Spencer who has, pretty intimately, involved himself with ideas from the European New Right.
But you seem to want to ask me personal questions about what I myself ‘do’. You won’t get very far with that question because, by-and-large, I am a theorist and not an activist. The better question I would think would have to do with what is going on in the American alternative movement; what is happening within American Conservatism. My impression is that most of *us* are located more in the idea-realm than in the action-realm.
Here’s a laundry list of traits that might be said to distinguish European culture from other cultures, based on tidbits I remember from anthropology and Spanish and Japanese classes.
High value on punctuality
Linear communication over circular (direct and to the point rather than
Including the context of how information was learned)
Individuality over family
Entitled to personal independence (recently)
Monotheism
Guilt as opposed to shame
Stuffy formal clothing (even more so than other cultures)
Keeping pets
Colonialism
Relatively relaxed attitudes on sexuality (which you might see as a problem?)
Can you confirm or deny any of these are part of your picture of European culture as distinct from other cultures? Are you telling me you couldn’t come up with such a list yourself? I could believe you have a coherent concept of this “identity” and just not know how to articulate it, but I’m also entertaining the possibility that you simply don’t have a clear idea of what you’re talking about.
Why should Europeans not adopt the strengths of other cultures and slough off their own weaknesses? What if everyone adopted my culture to augment their own? You’ve provided zero specifics as to what all these cultures are expected to do other than keep to themselves, or why they can’t coexist.
You say you work mostly in the idea realm? That fits with my current picture of you: a perception-user like myself, but one who uses concepts that only have a loose relationship with reality. Labels without definitions, distinctions without differences, criticisms without problems, and purposes without ideals are your stock in trade. You claim the authority of analysis, but your analysis is weak. To cover for it, you claim that other people are unwilling to learn to understand you. That won’t work on me. I’m calling you on your assertions. Where’d You Get Those Ideas? This is not the place to refuse to explain yourself. If you make an assertion, you can’t just claim other people can’t understand the reasons. If you don’t understand your own reasons, that’s alright. I’ll back off a bit, and we can work through the sources of the ideas. Just don’t sound so confident in your own wisdom. It rings hollow to my ears.
You interpret my self-portrayal aptly, but you miss the part where I am not merely an oddity, but a manifestation of the deeper reality that dissolves the superficial constructs that it encounters, to the consternation of humanity at large. New Age? Post-modern? Existentialism goes deeper than such amusing diversions. Try Elder God.
Thus proves my assertion that Alizia will not engage in a reasonable argument, but she will insult you for not already intuiting her weird alt-right notions. Still a worthy endeavor, EC, if only because it reveals her cowardice and vacuousness.
Thus proves my assertion that Alizia will not engage in a reasonable argument, but she will insult you for not already intuiting her weird alt-right notions. Still a worthy endeavor, EC, if only because it reveals her cowardice and vacuousness.
You are merely fooling yourself and with your assertion showing how you block yourself off.
There cannot be a discussion if the other party in not or will not prepare themselves for it. If EC or anyone else desires to understand the position of the European New Right or the American New Right they will have to dedicate time to the study. I cannot do that work for them and can only present vistas for further examination. This is not a forum designed for extensive conversations. Most make mere comments.
My intention is not to insult. I prefer to think of it as ‘play’. If you mean of course suggesting that EC has no exoskeleton or that he lives in a bottle in a postmodern sea. Don’t take things so seriously! I am only playing with the image he himself presents. But I do grasp that you wish to vilify me, one way or the other.
The notions that inform the Alt-Right are in no sense at all weird. They are in fact traditional, philosophically and intellectually, and the problem here is that you lack familiarity with those categories! So it all appears weird to you. The arguments that I would make, and do sketch to some degree, are similar to Platonic arguments and are grounded in a similar method. That of hierarchy, of value, of difference.
You — and people like you — have gone so far around the bend in the river that these things really do seem like transmissions from outer space.
It is I suppose a comfort to you to imagine me a coward and ‘vacuous’. If that helps you to maintain your barriers against understanding I suppose it serves a necessary function. I have been reading what you write for more than a year now and I see you as largely empty of any meaningful content and operating within established, quite conventional categories of thought. Perhaps the empty one (vacuous) is you?
Can you confirm or deny any of these are part of your picture of European culture as distinct from other cultures? Are you telling me you couldn’t come up with such a list yourself? I could believe you have a coherent concept of this “identity” and just not know how to articulate it, but I’m also entertaining the possibility that you simply don’t have a clear idea of what you’re talking about.
I would not have referred to anything on your laundry list, nor do I think I would work off a laundry list. I have no reason to dismiss the achievements of any other culture, for example Chinese or Japanese culture, or Persian or Indian. The value of Occidental culture does not require to be defended point by point, nor must it be compared necessarily in a line-up with any other culture. All that I need to be able to say is that it produced me (Occidental person) and people like me, that it is mine, that I want it and value it and seek to protect it. Would you be convinced by a list of attainments? Because if that were the case you could relatively access such a list as they are fairly common.
The core of the Occident, according to my understanding, is found in the melding of 4 principle cultural currents: Judea, Greece, Rome and then Alexandria as the place where ideas blended together. Judea for the revelatory aspect; Greece for the rational aspect; Rome for the impetus to found solid structures on which culture and civilizational forms are constructed. I think this nicely describes the foundation of Occidental civilization. I would seek to amplify definitions by referring to that base. But the laundry list seems trite.
My understanding is that the Occidental Self originates there, in that, in a Mediterranean self if you will, and in what these gave birth to. I imagine that North Europe would have to be added to that as a distinct influence. That is, when the Mediterranean world encountered the northern world.
Philosophy, religion, civics and government (Rome in essence), jurisprudence, statecraft, the University, art and architecture certainly, and then science and technology. The Occident also seems to *have* a unique form of will. Some of that deriving from religion, some of it from rational fixation. It is generally understood that in these areas the Occident has made unique contributions.
Identity in the sense that I mean it is in-depth understanding, involvement, appreciation and also dedication to ‘what made us us’. When I speak of identity I also mean resistance to what operates against self-identification. I would refer to Werner Jaeger’s ‘Paideia’ which is an in-depth study (in numerous volumes) which describes the education-base on which the Occidental self is constructed. My view has become that it is this in all its aspects, as I have explained here but also in areas that have not been explained, that Occidental Identity is to be found. And it is highly worthy of being 1) understood and 2) carefully protected and transmitted.
Why should Europeans not adopt the strengths of other cultures and slough off their own weaknesses? What if everyone adopted my culture to augment their own? You’ve provided zero specifics as to what all these cultures are expected to do other than keep to themselves, or why they can’t coexist.
You say you work mostly in the idea realm? That fits with my current picture of you: a perception-user like myself, but one who uses concepts that only have a loose relationship with reality. Labels without definitions, distinctions without differences, criticisms without problems, and purposes without ideals are your stock in trade. You claim the authority of analysis, but your analysis is weak. To cover for it, you claim that other people are unwilling to learn to understand you. That won’t work on me. I’m calling you on your assertions. Where’d You Get Those Ideas? This is not the place to refuse to explain yourself. If you make an assertion, you can’t just claim other people can’t understand the reasons. If you don’t understand your own reasons, that’s alright. I’ll back off a bit, and we can work through the sources of the ideas. Just don’t sound so confident in your own wisdom. It rings hollow to my ears.
You are entitled to your opinion, as they say. Don’t worry about backing off though. I am reasonably sure that you are not as correct as you think you are, yet what would convince you? I do not claim mastery either. I struggle to define all these important questions, and I also struggle against those who cannot or do not appreciate their importance.
What I do believe is that *people generally* (the people I have interacted with in the past, people whose writing I read, among youth and certainly in the Universities, as I say: generally) seem to me to be losing their connection with their own cultural traditions and, as a result, their own self. Why and how this has come about is a separate topic but it could be discussed. It must be reversed. Whether that will happen, I am uncertain.
You interpret my self-portrayal aptly, but you miss the part where I am not merely an oddity, but a manifestation of the deeper reality that dissolves the superficial constructs that it encounters, to the consternation of humanity at large. New Age? Post-modern? Existentialism goes deeper than such amusing diversions. Try Elder God.
I only make a little fun of you, just based on the octopus-image. You are a bit odd but so what? And I can only have a very limited grasp of what stands behind the ideas that you present, and the same is true for you. I will tell you that I am somewhat suspicious of the phrasing ‘a manifestation of the deeper reality that dissolves the superficial constructs that it encounters’. It has a grandiose ring to it, as if you represent some transformative Force, like kundalini. My interest is in getting to and understanding at the most profound level I am capable of what I understand as the mystery of the Incarnation. To have this goal or object, I admit, does make me suspicious of ‘novelty’. But I am not closed to hearing more.
And I do not mean you any disrespect. Perish that thought. I mentioned ‘New Age’ because I have read and also talked to people who describe themselves if not the same then similarly. And I am suspicious of what I call ‘acids’ that eat away at Occidental attainments. Acids are ‘infections’ and people get infected without consciously understanding what infects them.
“The value of Occidental culture does not require to be defended point by point, nor must it be compared necessarily in a line-up with any other culture. All that I need to be able to say is that it produced me (Occidental person) and people like me, that it is mine, that I want it and value it and seek to protect it.”
Very sentimental, but meaningless from a sociological standpoint. You can go start a heritage society, but you’re not equipped to make any credible pronouncements on what society at large would be better off doing.
“Would you be convinced by a list of attainments? Because if that were the case you could relatively access such a list as they are fairly common.”
I don’t think that would convince me on its own, but it would supply more pieces to the bigger picture. Do you have a list? A link? Any keywords that I could use? “List of Western accomplishments,” or something? There’s only so much effort I’m prepared into helping you make your case before I expect you to actually supply some tangible information yourself.
You seem to characterize ideas by their origins, as if that means anything. What do you make of this humorous rebuttal? http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-nature-of-weenies Be sure to click the red button to the right of the chevrons and hover the mouse over the main image; both will reveal supplemental punchlines.
I assumed no disrespect from you. Keep in mind, though, that acids don’t just destroy things we like. They’re also used for cleaning accumulated residue that can otherwise interfere with the functioning of a system. Actually, the deconstruction mindset I’m using isn’t the one themed on acid.
It is themed on “void”. Deconstruction, used properly, is about removing illusions and other obstacles to a clear picture of reality, to take away the experience of things that aren’t really there and reveal things that are.
EC wrote: “I assumed no disrespect from you. Keep in mind, though, that acids don’t just destroy things we like. They’re also used for cleaning accumulated residue that can otherwise interfere with the functioning of a system. Actually, the deconstruction mindset I’m using isn’t the one themed on acid. It is themed on “void”. Deconstruction, used properly, is about removing illusions and other obstacles to a clear picture of reality, to take away the experience of things that aren’t really there and reveal things that are.”
Ah, I see. Some variation on Buddhist-derived existentialism? (Not sure what it would be called but you have used the term existentialism). No-mind. Stopping the mind. Relinquishing concepts. Ceasing from holding to things, anything. I have had some encounters with people who might share your orientation. I should let you know that I definitely see Buddhist notions as being nearly precisely ‘acidic’ in the sense that I mean.
I do not disvalue this though, but I would have to quite severely modify it: “Deconstruction, used properly, is about removing illusions and other obstacles to a clear picture of reality, to take away the experience of things that aren’t really there and reveal things that are.”
To speak of cleaning, clearing and purification is of course one thing. But when I use the words ‘acid’ and ‘acidic’ I mean something genuinely destructive. Essentially, I have concluded that Buddhist thought processes ultimately are destructive of reason and reasoning: ratiocination. I see these traditions and *strategies* as making in-roads in the West as a result of nihilism and loss of relationship to self. Thus we may hit a wall of pretty deep incompatibility if I read you right. Meaning, you won’t be able to help me or further me, nor will I you.
Very sentimental, but meaningless from a sociological standpoint. You can go start a heritage society, but you’re not equipped to make any credible pronouncements on what society at large would be better off doing.
It was not meant at all sentimentally! But it very much has to do with genuine and honest self-definition. I have a feeling we will not be able to find a compatible track since, I gather, you reject the categories of concern that are most important to me. If I say of you or anyone else: ‘To appreciate yourself, your background, your culture, your traditions, you do not have to explain yourself or justify yourself to anyone else’, I do not see that as *sentimental* or sentimentalism. I see it as giving to another person a very basic respect. If I say that I do not need to defend myself, my culture, and in this sense my Eurocentrism to you or anyone else through a laundry-list that you can rate, I am giving to myself that same basic respect.
As I have been saying what interests and attracts me is defining and redefining relationship to Occidental forms. This is very specific. It has very much to do with tangibles. Those tangibles can be revealed and explained. But they may be irrelevant to you and your project, whatever it is. I made a reasonable effort to point out areas but I don’t have the desire to continue creating *lists* for you when, it seems, there is no list that would satisfy or convince you.
I don’t think that would convince me on its own, but it would supply more pieces to the bigger picture. Do you have a list? A link? Any keywords that I could use? “List of Western accomplishments,” or something? There’s only so much effort I’m prepared into helping you make your case before I expect you to actually supply some tangible information yourself.
I see this as a vain request really. And offering you some list would be futile for the reasons I mentioned before. I venture to say that you do not have much of an understanding of your own culture and the civilization that produced you, the institutions we live within, the ideas we value, and the values we high-light. If you did, I do not think you’d be asking these questions. But since you are aware that a *link* could give you some clues and pointers, and since you know what Google is and hoe to use it, spend some time and research your own answer. It is there, I mean people do make the case. And it is an important case to be made. I recommend again Werner Jaeger’s ‘Paidaia’. (I will link you to a n essay/review on W Jaeger since you seem to want something: http://www.mmisi.org/ma/28_2-3/park.pdf). His work very much helped me to form a solid idea of what must be 1) understood and 2) protected.
You seem to characterize ideas by their origins, as if that means anything. What do you make of this humorous rebuttal? http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-nature-of-weenies Be sure to click the red button to the right of the chevrons and hover the mouse over the main image; both will reveal supplemental punchlines.
It means tremendous things. But for one who has no exoskeleton, less. By your own image, you see, you simply shape-shift and color-shift as need be. But what are you at your core? The void I suppose you will say. Nothing? The Abyss? A group of references that ultimately mean nothing, at least to a rational person in a rational conversation?
Origins and locale are very very important! So is the body that carries knowledge. Judea, Greece, Rome — these are tangible places that existed in time and space. The people who lived and struggled for understanding and who carved out our most important categories were real people, in time and space, and they left definite traces. They gave us ourselves to be quite frank.
Yet it is simultaneously true that a great and important aspect of Occidental valuation is in non-physical upper-regions. Meaning the angelic realm. Wherever God is. I will admit a certain ambiguity there: What is the most important area to focus in? It’s both really. I suggest reviewing Jaeger’s work for this reason
Spartan wrote, “This guy is a public figure and he will be recognized. He chose to be in the limelight.”
That’s a rationalization and you know it. No one deserves to be harassed simply because they have an opinion that’s different than yours.
Spartan wrote, “There is nothing wrong with me privately discriminating against someone for odious, unpatriotic, conduct. In fact, I might have a duty to do that — otherwise I am normalizing or silently accepting what they are advocating. It would be ethically wrong for me, however, to privately discriminate against someone for who they are, including skin color, gender, and sexual orientation.”
Interesting how you condone unethical activity in one case but not the other; whether you want to admit it or not, your standards related to being ethical and discrimination are terribly skewed.
It is your choice to never walk back in to that gym for whatever reason you see fit; however, maybe personally talking to the owner and telling them your point of view and why you are choosing to leave would be an option. Wouldn’t an ethical choice be a choice that’s something other than actions to destroy the business by you and your friends boycotting them and what would you do about your friends that chose not to boycott the gym? Give the business a chance to do what’s best for their customers including the ones you hate because of you’re Opinion Bigotry.
I wrote a couple of things in that other blog…
“What I think is mind blowing in all this is that the gym made a conscious choice, they actually thought about it, and they literally chose to justify the intentional uncivil physical actions of one bigot and punish the other bigot that was the target of the abuse. The gym literally chose to punished the victim and justify the abuser; there is no other way to state it.”
Are you morally and ethically okay with the choice of the business?
I also wrote in that other blog that…
“The lady’s membership should have been immediately revoked and I would have asked the Mr. Spencer if he would consider moving his gym membership to another gym with no penalties to him financially, just let him out of his contract, so neither him or the gym would be faced with further harassment at that location”.
What do you think of my solution?
Spartan is using the “greater good” argument such that if all the righteous vote with their feet then they and the business owner are bearing the cost of the “odious” person.
Yes they are and so what. We all pay in this manner for the right to believe that which we hold dear. Spartan seems to believe the righteous should bear no cost to be able to hold their beliefs but others with antithetical views must be held fully responsible for the price of freedom.
I am… uncomfortable with your rationale, Spartan, and the reason is that the society swings over time. What you are validating now can be used against your views later.
Progressives are banking on the general civility of their opponents. Most people are too moral, ethical, or principled (or cannot be bothered, worst case) to riot in the streets in opposition to progressive’s doing the same. The alt-right is the beginning of a response to that trend: the ‘if those are the rules of the game, we will play to win’ meme. This is the tit-for-tat natural response to those who have been castigated, disenfranchised, and mistreated by the left for decades now. Many of those have no true moral, ethical anchor, and therefore see no reason not to defend themselves with the tools of the left. See how Trump’s treatment of Democrats and the media (sorry for the repetition) has them so upset? He acts like they have for years, and gets away with it just as they have!
As normal (non-political or radical) Americans come to realize that no amount of compromise (or even outright surrender) can protect them from the progressive mob (who can choose to destroy anyone on a whim,) which side do you think they will take? One that gives them a modicum of traditional liberties, or the progressive socialist group think that changes day to day, and eats their own?
Spartan, I respect you greatly as a person and writer. I ask you, do you really want to be treated as you just espoused treating another? One who views some of your closely held beliefs in as great a contempt as you hold some of his? Is this the Golden Rule?
My view of the ethics is to quit the gym if you must, but keep it to yourself to not harm another who has every right you do to his own beliefs, no matter how the current fads and media describe them. Live by the sword, you know.
I think for Sparty and her generation, including the Georgetown harridan, gyms have become the functional equivalent of what churches have been for, say, Sparty’s parents. The gym is where young professionals spend their time living a healthy lifestyle together. And let’s face it, there’s a lot of virtue signalling involved. Everyone’s smart and trim and against carbohydrates. So to have a troglodyte in the congregation is really unsettling.
But, to paraphrase Rodney, “Sparty, it’s a gym.”
And Sparty, admit it, if this guy came to you and wanted you to represent him against the gym for denying him his membership, you’d be all over the case. It would be better for your progressive bona fides than representing the Muslim fire fighters. Come on, the ACLU made sure NAZIs could march through Skokie. Surely you’d make sure a NAZI could walk on a treadmill, non?
I agreed that the gym should not terminate his membership. But I should never t have to interact with him.
But you’ve defined “interaction” as his being in your gym. In all my years riding an exercise bike or swimming at the downtown Y, I don’t ever recall having been required to interact with anybody. I bet you were all over your parents and aunts and uncles for them not being too excited about somebody wanting to be involved in the local 4-H chapter even though they weren’t Pure Michiganders.
Yes. I can choose to quit a gym if the head of the Alt-Right movement works out there. I don’t want to see him. I think everything he stands for his un-American and dangerous.
I would not confront him (that’s not in my nature), although I certainly would have the right to engage in conversation with him if I chose. As I mentioned, I also would not seek his termination. Rather, I would quit. There are plenty of Nazi-free gyms in the D.C. area, so I can spend my dollars however I want.
Spartan wrote, “There are plenty of Nazi-free gyms in the D.C. area”
That’s an interesting claim. I doubt that all “Nazi’s” advertise their political ideology, so how do you know that there are Nazi-free gyms in the DC area?
Well, many of them do. 😉
Spartan,
Quick Yes or No question, do you think that the Alt-Right “group” is equivalent to Nazi’s?
Feel free to elaborate on your Yes or No answer.
No. But I think one can belong to both groups at the same time.
That’s a fair answer.
Is there any evidence that Richard Spencer is actually a Nazi?
The video of the seig heils for Trump does sort of give credence to that hypothesis.
Don’t tell me, show me.
How does that video give credence to the hypothesis?
How does that video give credence to the hypothesis that he is a Nazi?
How would you say hail victory in German?
I have no idea, I don’t speak german. P.S. The video link didn’t seem to have audio, at least not on my phone. I’ll watch it again tomorrow when I have access to my desktop computer.
Valkygrrl writes: “The video of the seig heils for Trump does sort of give credence to that hypothesis.”
This is somewhat more complex and needs to be carefully gone through. One is that the ‘roman salute’ was at the culmination of a talk among people who have a rather ironical view of themselves and play off the way they are perceived and understood by others. The whole thing was more of a joke than anything else, but was filmed and broadcasted nationally in order to discredit and brand the meeting. The sensationalism of the gesture was also heavily criticized on the Alt-Right blogs. Greg Johnson wrote that he thought it was totally stupid to risk losing ground. But many people said: “They will misinterpret us anyway”.
There are I am sure neo-Nazi groups that do perform the Nazi salute in seriousness, and perhaps there are Nazis like in the picture Spartan posted, most likely Aryan Nation and prison groups. But Spencer and most of those in the intellectual Alt-Right are not of that sort. They are smart, aware and lucid people who take an inappropriate stance on certain questions though.
But what they are is *even worse* I think from *your* perspective: they are revisionists of European history and of the project of National Socialism. Basically, they see the attack on Germany as being politically and economically based and the vilification of the German as a war-department propaganda-project.
No one of them that I am aware admires what became of Nazi Germany but as historians they look in on it with different eyes. Simultaneously they also analyze against the grain of typical narrative the ‘story line’ that defines English and American intentions, and they notice collusion between various powers in the desire to destroy Germany. I also have examined much of this material and I also am of that opinion: the view of these wars is terribly distorted. (And also: the Holocaust is part of a concocted myth and one that is used to establish an absolute evil. They examine and ‘revise’ the typical story and they come to define a different one. Most that I agree with say that the destruction of the European Jews was indeed real, but the numbers were far less, and there were no gas chambers: a Soviet war-department lie. With all this they create and think about a different model to examine both the war but most importantly the aftermath: the creation of a narrative that supports *our present*. People like Deery and Chris and Beth are swimming in this view, and their personal identity is ties up in it.
So, these people are indeed dangerous to the established view, and they are indeed (with variations and degrees) Jewish-critical. I would say that Greg Johnson is the most overtly anti-Jewish and, in my view, this is why he also defines an anti-Christian position. This is a mistake in my own view. The Alt-Right has a strong anti-Christian element but there are Alt-Righers (myself for example) who value Christian philosopohy and cannot see how a white identity project can be undertaken without a full grasp of the relevance of Christian doctrine. The people from Red Ice Radio — very nice people really — are far more open to plurality generally but they are, and very much so, white nationalists.
The translation would come up as sieg heil. They were giving the Nazi salute in response to his invoking Nazi language, Hail victory isn’t the typical language Americans or other English speakers use. The rest of the speech, white supremacist stuff contains similar linguistic tics. He’s translating NSDAP language into English.
If that’s too tough to follow there’s little gems like this https://twitter.com/RichardBSpencer/status/828447273008955393
I can’t believe we’ve reached the point where people are literally sieg heiling and “objective” parties are still going “Ok, but what other evidence is there that they’re Nazis?” This is some Grade A sealioning.
I know, right?
Ok, I got to listen to the video this morning; Richard Spencer’s words in that speech are quite repulsive to me. There are lots of racist dog whistles and outright racists statements in there. When listening to the speech excerpts, the phrase “know your audience” comes to mind and boy did he know his audience.
There is reasonable arguments that his words are Nazi’ish. The few people in the room presenting the salute associated with the Nazi’s in Germany are wackos, but I didn’t see Richard Spencer or the majority in the room present the salute, so is everyone in the room considered a Nazi in your mind? Spencer did raise his water glass to the audience a couple of times but I see that gesture from a lot from speakers, heck I’ve done it a few times myself; if you’re going to call any innocent gesture like that a Nazi salute then you better call it that for absolutely ever person that does it without exception. If you want to call Spencer a Nazi because his words are Nazi’ish, that’s not completely unreasonable even though there is no clear evidence that he is actually part of the Nazi Party but go right ahead; if you want to call him a Nazi because there are some people around him that present the salute used in Germany, I think you’re pushing it – judge him by his actions not by the actions of others which he cannot control.
Here is a point that you may not know, the vast majority of Germans in the 1940’s were not Nazi’s but the vast majority still used the salute that is associated with being a Nazi. Do you call anyone that uses the salute or anything you can perceive as the salute as being a Nazi or do you accept such gestures as innocent and rationalize it away when someone you ideologically support makes an innocent gesture that “could be” similar’ish?
Even though we may be absolutely repulsed at what comes out of the mouths of some ignorant people, like actual Nazi’s and white supremacists, one of the core foundations of out country is the Constitution which allows for freedom of speech, for you, for me, for an ideological Nazi, for a white supremacist, for a black racists, for everyone without exception. That doesn’t mean there will not be any consequences for the words we choose; that said, there is no reasonable justification for the harassment this woman delivered to this man in the gym, there is no reasonable justification for the gym to literally punish the victim of harassment and allowing the harasser to roam free in their gym to harass again, don’t try to rationalize it away, it was wrong.
P.S. That twitter page you linked to is nothing but garbage.
Chris wrote, “This is some Grade A sealioning.”
It’s not sealioning; you make a claim, you support the claim and if you don’t support the claim then being asked to support it is not sealioning. You making such a statement you being a Class A #1 Asshole, so fudge you asshole!
Did I called everyone in the room a Nazi? Did Spartan? Did I call raising a glass a Nazi salute? Did anyone mention the German on the street in the 1940s?
You asked if there’s any proof Spencer is a Nazi? I showed you a rather famous video that you somehow missed. I gave you his words, I gave you his twitter feed. If it quacks like a duck…
Wait…ducks are Nazis? I did not know that. That settles it: I’m not going to any restaurants that serve duck.
valkygrrl wrote, “Did I called everyone in the room a Nazi? Did Spartan? Did I call raising a glass a Nazi salute? Did anyone mention the German on the street in the 1940s?”
Are you having a hard time this morning following the progression of an argument?
valkygrrl wrote, “You asked if there’s any proof Spencer is a Nazi?”
Yes I did; and you were so kind as to provide some. Thanks for that part.
valkygrrl wrote, “I showed you a rather famous video that you somehow missed.”
What the hell is that supposed to mean? If I’m reading that correctly I think I should be saying to hell with your bull shit implications; maybe you tend to follow everything that white supremacists say and do, I don’t. I hadn’t seen the video until you posted it, Spencer hasn’t been on my radar I literally don;t know much about him, so fucking shoot me now, I’m obviously an offensive ignorant human being that’s not worthy of breathing the same air that you breathe.
You’re being an ass and I will remember this little exchange the next time there’s something you don’t know.
valkygrrl wrote, “I gave you his words”
Which I promptly condemned.
valkygrrl wrote, “I gave you his twitter feed.”
I don’t twitter, and I never will. I called the twitter feed garbage and I stand by that assessment. I honestly don’t know if it is actually his page personal and he condones all that trash or if it’s a page put there to smear him, either way it’s full of garbage.
valkygrrl wrote, “If it quacks like a duck…”
I’ll remember that when you quack like a hyper partisan Progressive internet troll.
I get the distinct impression that you think I was somehow attacking you and defending Spencer in my May 25, 2017 at 9:17 am comment. I wasn’t doing either. Grow the fuck up.
Geese too, all that goosestepping is a dead giveaway. Why do you think they’re called fowl?
Why didn’t I think of that???
Here is the discussion that took place in the Alt-Right after Richard Spencer’s faux-pas:
https://redice.tv/red-ice-tv/richard-spencer-responds-to-his-hail-victory-speech-and-roman-salutes-at-alt-right-conference
So he’s an idiot, then?
We know that the Nazis appropriated many Roman Empire trappings, but the Nazi salute now supersedes its Roman model. Claiming that such a salute is a misunderstood reference to Rome is like claiming that raising a middle finger really was meant to honor the matriarchy as the Earth Symbol, as that gesture was originally intended...a couple thousand years ago!
Alizia,
The Alt-Right is using Animal House School of Thought and as long as they do they will be portrayed as exactly what they are intentionally portraying themself as – moronic extremists.
No one will take the sophomoric imbeciles in the Alt-Right, or the Alt-Right as a group, seriously until the choose to stop using Animal House School of Thought and be the adult in the room regardless of what others are saying about them.
No one can change the perception of the Alt-Right without the Alt-Right changing what they are projecting.
You tell your friends in the Alt-Right that they’re political fools.
Zoltar, you make a lot of fair points in your comments that would be better received if you toned down the hostility.
Fair comment, Chris.
Z, I love ya like a brother, and fear for your health: frustration hurts you more than those you vent on.
slickwilly,
I simply don’t internalize frustrations, I face them head on, say what I’ve got to say, and move on. My capacity for remembering what I read/see is an asymptote approaching eidetic which has forced me over the years to increase my capacity to forgive rather quickly thus letting go of frustrations.
It may not appear this way sometimes; I’m hard and blunt but that doesn’t equate to anger, when I’m actually angry I say so, deal with it, let it go, and move on.
Some people, Chris included, cannot get past the hard and blunt part.
I shared Greg Johnson’s opinion that Spencer’s action was not very intelligent. I like Richard Spencer quite a bit and I especially like his YouTube videos of interviews with Jonathan Bowden. I support the white identity movement as it forms and I can defend it against anyone anywhere anytime.
Myself, I question some of his tactics and I think he is sensationalist. Overall, I prefer Greg Johnson’s approach: always idea-based, always geared toward a smarter and better-informed person. Many of the people who write in response to articles on the Counter-Currents site make very good arguments and are obviously thoughtful, concerned and intelligent people. I am totally unmoved by any silly opinion you blurt out Zoltar and, in my own opinion, you make a fool of yourself when you do so. The various ‘alternative right’ movements forming in Europe and in America are based in serious concerns.
Whether you see this or don’t, whether I succeed in ever communicating anything of relevance to you or anyone else here is (now) not my concern. My effort is more to clarify things and help people to see things accurately and to avoid the obvious and bad-faith distortions of people like Chris and Deery and Beth. Factually, but yet only ‘In My Opinion’ everyone who writes on this blog makes gross errors in their analysis and understanding of the Alt-Right and alternative right and conservatives generally. My theory is that political thought and ideology is severely controlled.
I tried to get some of my ‘alt-right friends’ on the phone but no one picked up! I’ll keep trying ….
It’s easy, ZMan. All the Nazi free gyms look like this. These people are perfect.
Growing up were you one of the queen bees who just ignored the girls who weren’t cool enough for your clique? Come on, Sparty, you can do better than “I should never have to interact with him.” Like it or not, we all sometimes have to interact with people we don’t like, that we even hate. Otherwise, we’re just in that high school mentality that we can pretend people we don’t agree with don’t exist. If you hate someone so much you refuse to even breathe the same air as him, then that’s your problem, not his. It’s certainly not your right to make it his problem by deciding to go over to him and berate him, particularly if you don’t know him and have never interacted with him before. It could also be dangerous if you decided to berate the wrong person. I dunno if this gym is equipped with a MMA ring, but what if the person you berated told you that if you had such a problem, to get in the ring and let’s settle it? This guy tried to brush this harasser off so he’s a coward, but if he’d said let’s have this out he’d be branded a bully instead.
And sharing a gym with Dan Savage or Louis Farrakhan? (I don’t think Michael Moore is a big gym goer) As long as they are just working out I am content to work out also.
And the personal attacks keep coming — thank goodness I have a thick skin. 🙂
I was relatively popular in school but I was more Queen of the Nerds than anything — lead in the school plays, first chair flute, honors choir, only girl on the scholastic team, etc. The true popular girls pretty much left me alone because I had a reputation for responding to bullying with targeted and severe retribution. (Conduct that would get a kid expelled today.) I also had a huge older brother who was thug-like so school was not traumatic for me in the least. My only negative memories involve a few teachers.
And the deflections keep coming…
That’s your perception. I was just answering your question.
“There is nothing wrong with me privately discriminating against someone for odious, unpatriotic, conduct. In fact, I might have a duty to do that — otherwise I am normalizing or silently accepting what they are advocating.”
It’s comments like these that make me wish there were more lawyers out there. Good God, we need more lawyers!!!
Maybe it is just me, maybe it is my background in philosophy, but I suspect that it is my legal training that teaches me to acknowledge that, just because people do things I do not approve of, there are courses of action other than opening my big yap.
I don’t like illegal immigration, but 50% of my firm’s practice is immigration (legal and illegal; people coming in, people going out, and people sticking around). I don’t do that sort of work but, as much as antipathy I have toward illegal immigration, we have a system that provides some level of process to people in the system and I don’t begrudge one who engages in that process.
Likewise, I don’t condone criminal activity, but, were it not for scofflaws, ne’er-do-wells, and no-goodniks, I might not have a job. I deal with bad people who do bad things, and dumb people who do stupid things. I don’t condone their activity, but I can help them when they need help. So, I do
Such an occupation conditions one to be able to make the observation, “well, he’s an idiot,” before getting on with the rest of my day without giving the matter a second thought. It is a necessary skill unless you intend to live in a homogenous society.
Sometimes, it seems that the greatest unproven “truth” we assume is that diversity is a strength. In general, people don’t like people who are different from themselves. But, diversity is a strength, so we don’t care if you don’t like each other, you are going to have to get along. Even stronger, you don’t just have to get along, you will have to transact business with each other, even if you don’t want to. In this incident, the professor seems to be unable to deal with certain people if they don’t share her mind-set.
-Jut
Much of the left “intends to live in a homogeneous society,” JG. One where everyone’s a progressive. That’s what the whole Progressive project is about.
I wonder how many of you would keep going to the same tiny gym as Dan Savage, Louis Farrakhan, or Michael Moore?
I can quit whatever organization I want to quit. I can move to a different neighborhood if the head of the KKK moves next door. I can leave my Church if the new Pastor preaches that gay marriage is a sin. I can send my kids to private school if I don’t like what is being taught at our public school.
This is how the free market works people. I thought you were in favor of that.
Not much of a gym goer myself, but (Michael Moore joke omitted here).
You are right. You can do all of those things. What I find annoying is the inconsistency. Progressive mindsets seem to be, “I can shun you if I don’t like you, but you can’t shun me (or fail to make my wedding cake).” I am strongly in favor of Freedom of Association, but it took a huge hit with the civil rights legislation in the ’60’s. We, as a country don’t really believe people should be free to choose with whom they associate.
But, part of your comment is a deflection. The original post was not about a woman who quit a gym because she did not like one of the patrons; it was about a woman who did not like another patron and got him banned from the gym. So, your analogies are not quite analogous.
-Jut
This is why I object to being made Comment of the Day. I don’t support what the gym did. My post is about how people vote with their feet. No deflection at all.
And the Progressive mindset isn’t hard to understand at all — discrimination based on who you are (gender, skin color, ethnicity, sexual orientation) is not okay. Discrimination (private only) based on your conduct is most definitely okay.
“Assholes Need Not Apply.”
Spartan wrote, “Assholes Need Not Apply.”
Can I relate that to anything in your comment that I choose?
For instance: If I relate it to this statement “the Progressive mindset isn’t hard to understand at all”, “Assholes Need Not Apply” then it makes absolutely no sense at all because there are lots of Progressive assholes just like there are lots assholes in every other political ideological division.
I have my asshole moments just like everyone else. Heck just making the statement “Assholes Need Not Apply” comes across like someone is acting like a pompous asshole. 😉
You object? I’m sorry—I posted it because the comment was provocative and appeared to defend the gym kicking Spencer out. And I know you can take the heat.
… and she can ignore the responses if she wants
But I didn’t defend the gym kicking him out. That was Deery.
My point is that natural market forces possibly would cause the gym to close if he didn’t leave.
Just like the bar in Portland had to close in the case cited below by Emily. Plus they were fined 400K by the State.
Spartan writes: “And the Progressive mindset isn’t hard to understand at all — discrimination based on who you are (gender, skin color, ethnicity, sexual orientation) is not okay. Discrimination (private only) based on your conduct is most definitely okay.”
If I understand correctly the mindset of the governing laws of the United States make discrimination based on gender, skin color, ethnicity and whether you are homosexual (or some other class of sexual freakshow-on-wheels) illegal. You can get into all sorts of trouble if you violate those laws.
It is true that the ‘progressive mindset’ extends itself well beyond the law itself, which is limited, to many other different applications of the idealism of equality, and also makes it a moral evil to discriminate.
One can indeed *understand* the progressive mindset, which is based on particular arguments and ideology, quite easily. And one can also come to understand counter-arguments against those arguments, propositions and value-enforcements. One can make those counter-arguments and not be the ‘evil Nazi’ that you establish as an emblem of absolute evil. What *you* do is, in my opinion, where the real evil lies. You manipulate at an emotional level. You label with vicious labels. You do tremendous and tangible harm to other people and you are immune to the moral consequences of your actions. Why? Because you see yourself as being right and righteous. You can do the harm that you do with impunity, at least for now, because you have mind-f*&^ed people for numerous generations.
And what I attempt to do is to explain — simply explain and suggest — that counter-arguments exist. There are many good reasons to come to understand that ‘Race is real; Race matters’, and also to be able to see the solid ground for many other discriminations required in the living of life. I suggest that this capacity to discriminate — to evaluate, to hierarchize — needs to be recovered. And the first order of business is within the intellectual project of ‘white identity’ (European cultural identity).
Everything that operates against that, that works destructively against that, needs to be hauled out into the light of day and exposed for what it is.
“I wonder how many of you would keep going to the same tiny gym as Dan Savage, Louis Farrakhan, or Michael Moore?”
Would not bother me in the least. they have a right to their opinions. That is the difference between progressives and conservatives: conservatives let others alone within their rights. Progressives demand everyone change to their point of view, or someone is gonna pay!
By the way, congrats on your COTD (if you feel it was worth the headaches defending it) 🙂
“I can move to a different neighborhood if the head of the KKK moves next door.” Maybe not if the Obama HUD had its way and required all neighborhoods to be racially diverse. At some point, you might not be able to move because then the racial mix wouldn’t be appropriate.
“I can leave my Church if the new Pastor preaches that gay marriage is a sin.” Come on, you’d run him or her out on a rail first.
“I can send my kids to private school if I don’t like what is being taught at our public school.” Not if the NEA had its way. Besides, you’re already living in the best neighborhood you and Mr. Sparty can afford so your kids are in the best possible public school so you can save for their college.
These responses are weak Bill.
In any event, you’re dead wrong on No. 3. My friends make fun of me all the time for the neighborhood we live in. The schools suck, but we stay here because it is close to DC and we are committed (right now anyway) to sending our kids to elite private schools, so why should we move to a more expensive neighborhood? Seems financially foolish to me to increase our mortgage just to move to a better public school system if we aren’t using those schools.
These responses are weak. How so?
As to No. 3, then you’re an elitist, Sparty. You’re not a progressive. You’re supposed to sacrifice your kids in the public schools to make a stand. You’re not a true believer. You want your kids to be able to get a job at Goldman Sachs or go to Yale or Harvard so they can get a high paying government job. You want your kids to be able to contribute to income inequality. Funny. So are your friends who make fun of you more or less liberal than you are?
Life’s a mystery, ain’t it?
Your definitions are not my definitions, but if sending my kids to the best schools I can afford makes me an elitist, then I guess I am an elitist.
If I move to the neighboring county and buy a $2 M house so my kids can go to some of the best public schools in the nation, am I still an elitist or can I call myself a Progressive then?
I think most Progressives advocate for people to make the best decisions for their families but are generally against school vouchers.
“Assholes need not apply.”
The problem is defining “Assholes.” It’s generally defined by Progressives as anyone who’s not all in on the Progressive agenda and on the wrong side of history. It’s like the Communists calling anyone who’s not a devout Communist a reactionary. Anyone who didn’t vote for HRC or wouldn’t have voted for Obama for a third or fourth term if he’d been before FDR killed that option, is an Asshole.
In fact, you areprobably an asshole for sending your kids to private school.
“I think most Progressives advocate for people to make the best decisions for their families but are generally against school vouchers.”
So school choice is fine if both parents are highly paid lawyers but not if you’re not?
Exactly.
The proles cannot make decisions that are best for themselves or their families, because it has already been established (the science is settled) that progressives are better at making those personal/family decisions for low class low income people they are so committed to “helping.”
Whoa, guys, can we pull it back here? Cut Spartan a break: she (personally) should not have to defend every progressive inconsistency and arrogant position.
She just made a comment, and your mileage may vary. Give a little grace, please.
I disagree, sw. I think Sparty’s probably one of the thickest skinned bozos on this bus. She’s very bright and loves to argue. Her mind can go a mile a minute. She loves being provocative. And she likes to win. If you look up “argumentative” in the dictionary, you’ll see her picture.
Which is to say, she’s a lawyer.
Took the after thought right out of my mouth. I was going to add: “Plus, she’s a litigator, for God’s sake.”
I don’t recall ever winning an argument here ….
You have, I just didn’t tell you.
Spartan wrote, “I don’t recall ever winning an argument here ….”
It’s something that you’ll never likely know; when was the last time you saw anyone post a comment that say “You win” when it wasn’t meant as sarcasm. 🙂
“I don’t recall ever winning an argument here ….”
Hah! That’s funny, Sparty! Well we can certainly say you’ve never, ever conceded a point, non?
[What am I saying? You won’t even agree to that! Hah!]
Everyone already has school choice. You move to a community and that community has a public school. I can’t afford the house I live in now if I moved one school district over. But I could afford a tiny house or an apartment in the next school district over. That is the choice I made.
Taxes should go to public schools, not private schools. If you are wealthy enough to pay for a nice house and have access to great public schools, then you are blessed. But draining public tax dollars to fund private school tuition makes no sense. Many private schools have endowments or are otherwise subsidized by churches. Heck, my husband and I qualify for financial aid at my kids’ school. A poorer family would receive even more aid.
“If I move to the neighboring county and buy a $2 M house so my kids can go to some of the best public schools in the nation, am I still an elitist or can I call myself a Progressive then?”
In any rational world, you’re an elitist. But in the Acela Corridor, you can call yourself a Progressive because you’re part of the dominant culture and you are entitled to call yourself whatever you want. But in much of the country, you’re a garden variety Limousine Liberal.
But remember Sparty, you’re our Limousine Liberal. So it’s okay.
Funny. I know a family who sent their sons to Detroit Country Day — one of the best private schools in Michigan. They actually did send their kids to school in a limousine each day! But they were Conservatives, so what did that make them? I have no idea what their position on school choice was. (I was friends with their daughter, so I got to ride in the limo sometimes.)
Sparty, it made them Conservatives! They didn’t pretend to be Liberals. Come on, ALL conservatives ride in limos.
I’m on your side. Our kids went to private schools originally because the cost of after school day care exceeded the cost of private school that included after school. Plus I’d gone to Catholic grade school and high school, private college and Catholic law school. Education was the most important thing to my wife (who worked all the time). For a few years when he was going to Phoenix Country Day School our son was driven home in the afternoon in a cab!
So yes, of course you’re doing the right thing for your girls. Good for you. But you’re a Conservative in so many respects! Why all the contortions?
Why should tax dollars continue to finance awful schools when those dollars could instead be diverted via vouchers to better schools? What’s more important: the educational outcome or paying the awful unionized teachers and paying off the school bonds? Think of the children!
Sparty is not liberal in all matters. Like most sensible and intelligent people, she decides what is right by analysis, not by template or lockstep.
But like Chris, she feels strangely obligated to toe the party line so much of the time. I guess it’s generational. My forty-something kids are the same way. They’d rather suffocate themselves by not breathing than openly agree with their old man about almost anything, certainly not policy or politics.
I’m curious what Spartan’s take on this case from a few years ago would be: http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2015/09/north_portland_bar_owner_loses.html
I do not think that a public establishment can exclude anyone based on gender, sexual orientation, religion, race, etc. So, the bar owner can be held liable for trying to force them out. I think action could be taken against the gym in Alexandria as well — although that will be a harder case because “white nationalism” is not necessarily a political belief.
All that being said, I am sympathetic to the bar losing business, but that is how the free market works. Many of the bars in Dupont Circle in DC are gay bars now — but they didn’t all start out that way.
Agreed. Bars are a nasty, trendy business. The guy probably should have gone to an all trans-gender business model and just found a buyer. But Jeeze Sparty, the guy didn’t get crushed by the free market, he was crushed by the State. $400,000.00? Plus interest and penalties and court costs, etc? Yikes/
He got crushed because he took illegal action. Again, I am sympathetic, but he should have consulted with a lawyer first.
I have no problem with your views, but I object to “that’s how the free market works.” In a free market, you can refuse service to Spencer, trans people, or the President of the United States. That’s the “free” part. This is a regulated market. The regulations might be ethical, but regulation ate already there that by definition limit the freedom of the market.
(regulations are)
Bingo, Emily. It was the regulatory authority that killed the guy, not the free market.
No — that isn’t how the free market works. In a free market, the CUSTOMER decides where to buy his goods. but businesses have to serve everybody. If a shop closes, it is because its goods/services were not attractive enough to stay profitable.
That is why I object to what the gym did in Alexandria. Although, and as I noted, I can see how it financially it will struggle if the guy remains a member.
In this case, the transgender customers were asked to not come back because of their behavior, not their being in a suspect class.That’s not a free market. That’s the regulatory state run amok.
Or, in Mrs. Q’s words, “a socialist shithole.”
And what about the proportionality of the “fine?” Can you say proportionality boys and girls? Sure you can. A warning could have been issued? A lesser fine? Forty dollars? Four Hundred Dollars? Okay. Four thousand Dollars? Maybe but a stretch. Four Hundred Thousand Dollars? Punitive. Clearly intended to drive the guy out of business for violating (arguably) an, in this set of facts, pretty obscure law. But an important and inviolable law to the LGBTQ crowd, or at least its T squadron.
“He should have consulted his lawyer.” Right. Well said by a commercial lawyer. Just what the economy needs. Every small business owner in the country should consult their attorney before they interact with a problematic customer. Good for business. At least the law business.
Here’s sample of the zeitgeist in Portland: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4538398/Burrito-shop-shuts-accused-stealing-culture.html
Which ties in nicely with the ongoing discussions here about boycotts and internet commentary.
He did a little more than interacting with a customer, and yes, some alarm bells should have gone off in his head first.
The fine does seem excessive.
You’re still wrong. A seller decides who to sell to in a free market, because the seller has a limited number of goods and has to be free to set the value of their goods. A person who will pay $5 for a widget but provide $50 in free advertising is a better return value than a customer who will pay $10 but turn people away.
Say a town has 200 racist people will drink at a bar if there are no black people. 10 black people will drink at a bar if there is one. The bar can’t stay open for ten black people. Do this mean there’s no room in the local market for a bar?
Once again, I’m not even arguing for a free market here, just the definition and concept.
(Apologies for typos once again. I’m awful with a tablet keyboard.)
This boils down to ‘I can sell my stuff to whom I choose’ in a free market. ‘We reserve the right to deny service to anyone, for any reason’ has devolved to ‘You must sell based on someone’s demands, based on special group status, or be ruined.’ If you are not providing a regulated service, this should be your business. Phone companies, public schools, and Electric companies are regulated critical services and have to serve all. Bakeries are not.
Bakers should be able to make a cake as and when they please, for whom they please, and progressive government busybodies should butt out.
Sounds like a crappy town. Your definition of free market hasn’t existed in a long time and never will again. We cannot allow businesses to discriminate — it is a shameful part of our history and cannot be repeated.
“We cannot allow businesses to discriminate — it is a shameful part of our history and cannot be repeated.”
Ummm, you mean the way this country operated for the first, oh, 200 years? What, exactly, was so bad about this that you would never allow a return to free markets? Allow me to set the stage:
Businesses who artificially limit their clientele make less money than those that don’t. If one business will not sell to left handed basket weavers, and there is a market, someone else will. The only time that does not happen is if the government starts regulating. Free markets serve the demand. Prices are what will sell enough of the product to meet the ambitions of the seller.
Free markets need private ownership. Who are you (generically) to demand that someone who invested his money and labor meet your demands of where and how he sells his product? This is where we have created our won problems, allowing government to place ignorant and biased regulations on businesses, to the extent they get contorted into the very thing socialists condemn?
Socialists perverted the free markets over decades to get to the place where they can point and shout about how terrible free markets are! They would place idealists without experience in charge of those who know the job. Name a successful program run by the government that was cheaper and/or better than the free market, outside of the Constitution. HUD? Social Security? Healthcare? Wall Street? Build and maintain roads, bridges, critical infrastructure?
This is NOT an attack on Sparty, but that statement was sheer communist bullshit
“Ummm, you mean the way this country operated for the first, oh, 200 years? What, exactly, was so bad about this that you would never allow a return to free markets?”
Well, I suspect it wasn’t bad for the white males of the world but, otherwise, it pretty much sucked for everybody else. Try buying a house or renting an apartment as a minority before Fair Housing regs came into play. Heck, try getting a mortgage at all before banks were told that they were only allowed to discriminate on credit-worthiness!
Bigots who run businesses absolutely will lose money before sacrificing their precious beliefs. I don’t even need to prove this — it’s well documented. And these decisions hurt people. It hurts their ability to find work and provide for their families, it hurts their school choices, it hurts their ability to have a roof over their heads.
… and government controls were necessary to prevent alternate banks and businesses from competing. If not the Fed, it was State and Local control.
You say how hard it was, but where is the pictures of all the minorities who had no roof over their heads? No one would rent to them, or sell them a house: surely the shanty towns stretched for miles! Where are the stories of starving minorities, since no jobs were available? There was no welfare, remember. How did any of them survive?
Bigots who lose money go out of business, if the free market is allowed to function. This is economics 101.
“Well, I suspect it wasn’t bad for the white males of the world…”
Bullshit. My forefathers had not a speck of ‘white privilege:’ they were poor dirt tenant farmers. My father was the first in our family (and the second EVER) to go to college. My maternal Uncle was the first EVER to go to college on that side. Society cut them no slack, and they were looked down upon as much as any minority in Texas.
It was great for those who manipulated government into restricting the free market, Sparty. The ‘evil wealthy.’ Were they predominately white? Of course: the country was over 90% ‘white’ for much of history. This is a deflection, along with a glossing over of history.
I thought you were better educated than that: I refuse to believe you knew this but made a political argument for the sake of partisanship.
Yawn. I’m so sick of this “but we were poor too” argument. Blacks had it harder, women had it harder, other identity groups had it harder. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t better now, but we’re not yet at an even playing field. My senior sister and I were the first in our family to go to college. So what? White males with a high school education could still get good jobs so my dad didn’t need to go. Those same opportunities were not available to Black men or women of any color at the time.
Non-rhetorical questions follow.
What do you mean by an “even playing field”?
Do you mean literally nobody has any advantages or disadvantages to start out with? We all start out exactly the same and differentiate ourselves over time by making choices and sacrifices which shape our future opportunities? That would actually be kind of nice…
Do you mean everyone gets judged based on their character and given all the opportunities they need to improve? That would be nice, too. I’m specifically working towards that.
Do you mean that all socioeconomic subgroups and metrics of a population reveal proportionate demographic representation? As long as people know How Not to Be a Bigot, that sounds rather pointless. If all the blue people are poor, but everyone gives each other respect and opportunities to succeed, does that really make a difference?
Do you think any of these scenarios can be made a reality by shutting out ideas that oppose them, and refusing to engage with the people holding those ideas? What distinguishes between a wrong idea that you will engage with, one you will tolerate but ignore, and one you will oppose?
Sparty, Frack you.
My school was 85% black, including teachers. I was raised as the discriminated against group. I felt first hand what it felt like; I would never treat anyone like that.
You do not have the experience to even begin to understand how condescending you sound.
And what about my other arguments? I’ll take your deflection as a lack of coherent refutation.
I was reaching out to engage you. I wanted rational logical discussion, in the interest of understanding your point of view, and maybe allowing you to see mine. Instead, you retreated into progressive platitudes, where you ridicule the person for some immutable trait, as if that nullifies the point the person made. In doing so, you became what your virtue signaling holds so awful: a racist bigot who judges based on the color of skin instead of the content of character and actions. This arrogant attitude got Trump elected: limousine liberals who know better how the rest of us should live our lives, while being hypocrites who do not interact with minorities. People can disagree without using such despicable tactics, and I thought you were better than that.
And bullshit that their were not opportunities for women and blacks. Maybe in the North where you grew up this was true. Where I was, we were all poor, and not as divided as you believe in your fevered imagination.
“Those same opportunities were not available to Black men or women of any color at the time.”
So your Hollywood induced vision about how it MUST have been is the way it was in all 50 states, each town, a monolithic culture without variance? How arrogant! What hubris!
And if I witnessed otherwise (through my eyes, and in the stories told by family and friends, many of them Hispanic and black, who were there and lived in those times,) that does not count, huh? Those observations don’t fit your comfortable, virtue signalling white only community vision of how the world must be.
The northern states have far more problems, racially, than Texas. This was true since Spain owned the Southwest. We were integrated from the start. Whites were invited in under Hispanic government, and were loyal until the compact was broken. Texas would likely be part of Mexico today, had Mexico not tried to confiscate the homes of her citizens based on race.
Meanwhile, white bread northern states passed laws post Civil War preventing blacks from moving there. Blacks could not vote, hold office, and so on where? In the North. Hypocrites.
The South was forced to integrate a century ago.. We get along, here in the South. There are problems: we solve them. We are not perfect. But we are not what you think we are, and how dare you sit in your purposely segregated life and judge us.
Spartan, that is going to leave a mark ….
SlickWilly, you are speaking from anecdotes and emotion. The numbers speak for themselves — there was a systemic effort to discriminate against Blacks and other minorities. Whites — as a group — had it easier. And you all can keep calling me an elitist, but every time it makes me smile a little because my family was poor. I was raised on a small pig farm and we grew most of our own food. But that doesn’t cloud my judgment about the restrictions in place to hold minorities back as a group. I grew up in a town where cross burnings and gay bashings were common. We all have our baggage.
slickwilly, I don’t believe Spartan was denigrating you for your race. She simply believes you have more social privilege due to your race than others. That does not imply any fault or inferiority on your part or the part of white people in general, it merely implies that society is structured in a certain way to favor people of your race. That may not be true, but it is not bigotry.
I also grew up white and poor, in a majority Hispanic town. I was raised by a Christian conservative single mother and lived in a one bedroom house with her and my brother, then later, her and my niece. I never knew the idea of white privilege was at all controversial until I got to college. I make no judgments about your individual experience, and I don’t think Sparty was either. She’s talking about American society as a whole.
…. and all I am is the daughter of a Venezuelan Jewish cobbler from a long line of Jewish cobblers.
::: sigh :::
Why couldn’t I have been born on a pig farm?
Life is really unfair!
It was a foul reply. I called it what it was.
No slickwilly, it was a fowl reply, see https://ethicsalarms.com/2017/05/24/comment-of-the-day-ethics-dunce-old-town-sport-and-health-in-alexandria-va-why-because-white-nationalists-have-a-right-to-work-out-too/#comment-444385 for proof
I’m not interested in getting on the “Spartan’s comment sucks” bandwagon however I do want to address the particular mind set her comment reflects.
In my mind I don’t see myself as a quadruple minority. Yes my skin color is brown, I’m a lady married to a lady, work from home due to disability…but I don’t think of myself in terms of “special classes.” I’m probably more like a country conservative old school hippy stuck in a socialist shithole (Portland OR). However how do you think many of the young white liberals here tend to treat me? Well some dismiss me because I don’t agree with their stances. I’m called a traitor or “uncle Tom” by those who speak “anti-racism” because I don’t see myself as a victim & have no problem with people thinking so-called racist thoughts.
But there are also the certain white liberals who do something else just as annoying; they attempt to treat me like some sort of scared animal who should be bestowed with gifts & extra kindness. From literally receiving a minority discount to people falling all over themselves to stay out of my way or smile condescendingly or whatever (it wasn’t like this prior to the Nov. election).
Now let me ask…who is the real racist? Who is the real bigot? Is it the guy in the gym who thinks his thoughts, says what he says in his home or on his website, but treats me personally like everyone else? Or is it the liberal who sees me & assumes I think like they do & rewards me for it, or calls me a race traitor because I don’t think their way?
Personally I’d rather workout by the dude who thinks what he thinks but treats me the same in public than the person who treats me differently in public because of my race, class, etc. I don’t know anyone who isn’t a bigot or jerk about something (including myself) internally. I assume everyone I meet is a hypocrite, bigot, and fails miserably at some category of human decency. I don’t care if their book bag says ” white privilege is real” (I literally saw this yesterday at a taco bar & almost threw up a little) or if they have KKK tattooed on their inner lip, sanctimonious BS is sanctimonious BS, and sanctimonious BS NEVER makes anything better for anyone in the long run.
I like people, even racists, because something special happens when we take down the walls of elitism & virtue signaling. When we let people think what they want but still treat them with common courtesy & respect, even if they don’t reciprocate, we find we have much more in common than we think and there is even brotherly love at times. I once gave a neo-nazi a quarter for the bus & he smiled…so you just never know.
Well stated, my Lady. Great comment
What a fascinating comment. COTD…thanks.
I had to look up COTD because I’m such a Luddite.
And I don’t say it enough Jack, but I really appreciate what you do here on EA. Thank you.
That’s a fabulous comment worthy of going viral!
Mrs. Q,
I’m whipping out this quote again because I think it reflects some of what you talked about.
There are no chasm walls created so distant by ideologies that are not bridged by the solid foundation of underlying human commonalities that support those ideologies.
Here here!
Stipulated: This person believes things that we think are wrong, and we want him, ideally, to stop believing them.
I assert that shunning him is counterproductive with regards to getting him to stop believing these things. He is almost certainly aware of the public opinion of Nazis, and he evidently doesn’t care, so peer pressure is already shown not to work. Besides, truth is not determined by a majority vote, so if we act like our numbers are the major argument against the Nazi ideology, or whatever similar ideology this person subscribes to, it not only weakens our position in his eyes, but also leads us to forget the real reasons for what we believe.
We have at least four options:
1) We can make rules prohibiting certain beliefs. That prevents free, nuanced thought and truth-seeking, and prompts resentment.
2) We can shun people with those beliefs. That leads to a fractured society and more resentment.
3) We can do nothing. People will still do business with each other, but the culture will be fractured and no one will learn anything.
4) We can communicate respectfully with everyone. I had to learn how from scratch, because I would never merely tolerate a difference of perspective that I couldn’t understand. Most other people just ignore or avoid differences, until they can no longer afford to and panic because they don’t know how to resolve political or ideological conflicts.
All we really need to do is set a good example for the person, provide information on our own beliefs (sometimes unsolicited, but always accompanied by empathy rather than force), and chide him when his beliefs lead him to disrespect people (though he is likely to be less disrespectful than how he is treated by liberals).
Nazi is as Nazi does. The same goes for social justice warriors.
I have to imagine that if a well-known Muslim who advocated for the “peaceful ethnic cleansing” (whatever that means) of all Christians and Jews in Asia and Africa worked out in your club, that it would bother you. If that same person believed that an equal number of Americans should die for every Muslim person killed by a drone strike or by American forces that it would bother you even more.
If I let people with stupid, destructive opinions bother me, I wouldn’t be able to help them learn they are wrong. If they want to promote or advance those opinions, I’m more than happy to listen to them and deconstruct their beliefs for them, in an attempt to change their minds or otherwise neutralize their agenda. If they pose an immediate threat, I’ll stand in their way (and mock them mercilessly).
I don’t feel threatened by people who merely wish I were dead. I find them fascinating. Call it insanity, call it white privilege*, but I’m the Extradimensional Cephalopod and I am very secure in the realm of ideas and thoughts. Nothing is unthinkable for me, but it’s always interesting to see how people attempt to justify thinkable things that happen to be wrong in some way or other. I also have Barren [sic] Blauschwartz to back me up if anyone gets agitated.
*Maybe you wouldn’t, but others would.
What evidence is there that Richard Spencer, or any white nationalist, is persuadable through reason?
I mean, do you think you’re the first person to suggest this?
Maybe they can hug out their differences over a smoothie at the juice bar after spinning class.
All we are saying is give peace a chance…
I think it’s possible no one has actually engaged with him on the subject, or that a few have but they were not proficient with deconstruction mindset, which would unravel his beliefs. I have reason to believe that humans are persuadable through a combination of reason and emotional influence. Studies on biases and emotions show that people’s opinions are mutable based on a number of factors.
If we hypothesize that there are people who hold wrong beliefs that they cannot be reasoned out of, what are we afraid of that would lead us to suppress their opinions? And how would you know you aren’t such a person?
Oh for Heaven’s Sake EC! You start from the foregone assumption that it is he who should be influenced by you and not the other way around! I know very well Richard Spencer’s thinking because I have read him extensively and listened to many talks. His position is totally reasonable and makes great sense. Before you could make any statement at all you;d have to become familiar with his ideas and what has informed him.
Chris asks: What evidence is there that Richard Spencer, or any white nationalist, is persuadable through reason?
Again, you need to turn your lens of focus back on yourself, not outward on other people. You, dear one, are overall impervious to ideas which do not fit in with your various constructs. And you share this with many of the progressive types on this blog. You think you have everything all sorted out, and you really and honestly believe you stand in some Divine Light that shines down on your Blessed Self!
You are filled to the brim with all sorts of American assumptions and the Manifest Destiny of their righteousness emanates from your Holy Pores. Excuse the mockery but, Good Lord, your scent is cloying and has me gagging.
No one on this Blog has any clear idea at all of what the Nouvelle Droite of Europe or the intellectual Alt-Right of America is about. Just a while back, as I remember, strange evidence of classical closed-mindedness was witnessed when one member, in discussing Noam Chomsky’s work, said something to the effect of “I don’t need to read him because I know that sh*t stinks”. No intellectual work, no personal grappling with his ideas, just an opinionated statement that he is *evil*.
Richard Spencer, and others associated with him, are doing fine reasoning and a great deal of it. The actual fact of the matter is that many on the Right and in the more Conservative camp, especially this is true on the Alt-Right in my direct experience, are avid and deep readers, are reading closely and carefully, and are discussing many different ideas which make what *you-plural* seem to accept as *intellectual work* as seeming severely lacking. Thus my opinion that all you really have to rely on is guilt-slinging, name-calling and tossing out labels.
I admit, it sounds like I am assuming Spencer is wrong. That’s because I’m trying to pitch the idea of engaging with people of differing opinions to people who do assume that Spencer is wrong. I have no intention of trying to influence anyone to change their views before I listen to try and understand what those views are and what reasons a person has for holding them. The deeper the change, the more listening is necessary. I don’t know anything about Spencer, but that’s not the point, because I’m not trying to convince anyone he’s wrong. I’m trying to convince people that if he is wrong, it is possible and worth doing to get him and everyone who shares his views to understand that.
I’m not sure where you got the idea that my assumptions were “American”. Can you describe what you think my assumptions are based on what you think I believe to be true, and not where you think the assumptions came from? (In case that statement didn’t tip you off, I’m an existentialist. I suggest you try it. Once you get the hang of “existence precedes essence” you’ll be able to let go of many of the concepts that you unsuccessfully try to sell us on.)
Yes, I am indeed possessed of the belief that I am one of the most powerful perception users on this planet, for all the good it does me. I am also, of course, very arrogant. Thank you for noticing. I try not to let it have negative effects on my reasoning process, so functionally it usually works more like confidence or scrupulousness. I became a powerful perception user by not writing off ideas that people actually believed, and instead investigating their reasons. Rest assured, if I seem “impervious” to ideas, it’s because I’m falling short of my own listening standards. I’ll try to do better.
I watched the video you posted, and it seems that Spencer is a pleasant, reasonable human, as humans go. He’s certainly honorable, if a bit preoccupied with appearance (I analyze souls; I don’t care if a person is “ugly”–Fair looks like a normal human to me). I don’t really care if people want to do constructive things for white people, as it sounds like Spencer is suggesting, but I will be quite confused as to why they would bother limiting their help to only white people. I don’t know how much he considers other ethnicities to be a threat to his own, but if he does, that confuses me as well.
Alizia, earlier in this thread you posted a video of Richard Spencer, the title of which uses the term “autistic” as a slur.
This is the man you keep telling us is just so much more intellectual and reasonable and sophisticated than the rest of us morons who just Aren’t Smart Enough to be Alt-Right.
That you are impressed by Spencer’s intellect only shows the limits of your own. That you linked to that video in trying to convince others of the majesty of Spencer’s higher reasoning skills is a hilarious self-own. Quoth the kids these days: you played yourself.
Chris writes: “Alizia, earlier in this thread you posted a video of Richard Spencer, the title of which uses the term “autistic” as a slur.
This is the man you keep telling us is just so much more intellectual and reasonable and sophisticated than the rest of us morons who just Aren’t Smart Enough to be Alt-Right.
That you are impressed by Spencer’s intellect only shows the limits of your own. That you linked to that video in trying to convince others of the majesty of Spencer’s higher reasoning skills is a hilarious self-own. Quoth the kids these days: you played yourself.”
Notice how rhetorically contaminated is your second and third paragraph. If you can — as I have been suggesting — turn around the lens of examination and look at the person and the intellectual process that formed that bizarre slur, you will really have made some progress.
When you do that, I also suggest that you come to see that this is how the Progressive Set sees itself and allows it to speak to and about others who look at things and interpret things differently.
It could be worthwhile to examine your underhanded tactics and to point out how corrupt they are, but I choose not to do it. I certainly can suggest it though.
Slurs aren’t formed by “intellectual processes,” you windbag. You use a lot of intellectual-sounding words to cover up meaningless and stupid ideas, and in that way your writing reminds me of the hoax article Jack just wrote a post about. Except you actually think the things you write have meaning.
This sentence was especially meaningless:
When you do that, I also suggest that you come to see that this is how the Progressive Set sees itself and allows it to speak to and about others who look at things and interpret things differently.
What does the word “this” refer to in this sentence? What about the word “it?”
Slurs aren’t formed by “intellectual processes,” you windbag. You use a lot of intellectual-sounding words to cover up meaningless and stupid ideas, and in that way your writing reminds me of the hoax article Jack just wrote a post about. Except you actually think the things you write have meaning.
In your case there is a sort-of intellectual process operating in you. You are not that bright but you could not be said to be stupid, either. But overall what I most notice is the emotional and shaming aspect, as I have pointed out many times. Your recent slur, combined with this one, seems borne of some level of use of intellect but what is strongest in it is that you only communicate contempt and little more. I find this curious and worth focusing on. You Chris seem a manifestation of larger forces and processes. What you do here, is being done on a culture-wide level by hysterics similar to you.
Even what you wrote in the above-paragraph is nothing but an attempt to insult really. It is emotional and contemptuous and, to borrow your term, vacuous. This seems to be your sole tactic against ideas you don’t like and, more likely, do not understand. You employ your contempt and your high-falutin righteousness to close down the door to understanding other people, in this case a ‘Nazi’ (which seems to be your preferred slur). This is going on culture-wide (in case you have not noticed).
In my view of you and your argument, all you have is your anger and contempt and when it is provoked you unleash it in a moralizing storm of insult. I assume your mother still loves you though.
:::: yawn ::::
That is gonna leave a mark…
What I’m getting from this is that slurs are OK when alt-righters call their enemies “autistic,” but slurs are not OK when people call alt-righters Nazis.
Is this your position?
If not, could you clarify, in English, what your position is?
Is this where your concern lies?!?
I think Spencer pretty clearly and fairly explained what happened in the gym. I also think he exposed, if I can use such a word, certain things about the woman who accosted him. It is that shrill, confrontative, self-assuming righteousness that I have been talking about, don’t you think? Isn’t that one of the presently observable characteristics and tactics of the Progressive set these days? Confrontation?
Basically, Chris, I do not find any fault at all in Richard Spencer’s desire to work out at the gym. And I find great fault in the woman who accosted him. All the fault lies with her in fact. She succeeded in harming him (by getting the club to kick him out).
I would agree with you, and I have quite often said this, that you have many good reasons to be concerned about ideological strains that are developing now which run counter to your value-system. I hope that you will at least grant me that much! I see your concern.
Your mistake though is that you mis-use certain terms (‘Nazi’ for example). You would achieve much more actually reading Spencer and others and seeing what they really are, not what you merely call them. But I understand that you do not think you do need to modify your use of terms. And to explain to you why I believe that you use terms badly will result in nothing. A waste of finger taps.
I don’t think calling the woman ‘autistic’ is comparable in any way to your use of the term ‘Nazi’.
I think it’s possible no one has actually engaged with him on the subject, or that a few have but they were not proficient with deconstruction mindset, which would unravel his beliefs. I have reason to believe that humans are persuadable through a combination of reason and emotional influence. Studies on biases and emotions show that people’s opinions are mutable based on a number of factors.
Please excuse the additional comment! I always try to think things through and sometimes I spend a number of days on topics that are long since past into the under-world. This is sort of related to your comment on you COTD thread. I now begin to understand how in your internalized system, where The Void is seen as some sort of reference to which you bring and submit ideas to be ‘deconstructed’, that you cannot really have any Idea at all! All ideas are ‘constructs’ and all of them can be deconstructed in the face of The Void. Void is emptiness. Nothing. No-idea. I said in another post that I have noticed this ‘Buddhist’ mental methodology gaining ground in the West and that I see it as destructive? I believe that I could make the case on the basis of your use of this methodology.
So, you think that you or someone might ‘unravel’ his beliefs. But when they are unraveled what happens to them? Are they corrected? Changed? Improved? You will need an Idea to work on an idea, but how can The Void (no-idea) improve or modify an idea? I do not see how it can, unless The Void is somehow an active agent — a being of sorts that has an opinion.
Now, what happens with your method, which is also I take it a metaphysical stance, and also a psychological one, is similar to what will happen in a therapeutic setting: the deconstruction of a neurosis for example. I mean, your Void will function in this way. It seems to propose a therapeutic solution, a resolution, a dissolving, a deconstruction. What then?
You say that people (humans) are influences through a combination of reason and emotional influence. But to what? It requires an Idea of some sort. You imply with ‘reason’ that ideas are involved but you do not speak about any ideas, just their deconstruction.
Since you know very little, or nothing, of Spencer’s position, how could you deconstruct it rationally? You’d be left with the technique and the tools of emotional influence and manipulation. And this brings us, in my opinion, to a strange and interesting juncture that is the present: without really grasping or understanding the ideas involved, people use emotional tools to seek to get their way. To ‘influence’. But what is required is intellect and intellectual work, reason and ratiocination. And engaging in that, while putting aside seduction emotionalism and sentimentalism, must be the desired object.
If we hypothesize that there are people who hold wrong beliefs that they cannot be reasoned out of, what are we afraid of that would lead us to suppress their opinions? And how would you know you aren’t such a person?
I think you have answered your own question: ‘We’ are afraid of people who have reasoned ideas, backed by emotional commitment to them, which can affect us and the world we live in. We likely do not really understand their ideas — that would take much time and genuine effort — and so we end up in an emotional battle against them. We shame them, we put them down, or also we can do things to harm their economic position or social standing. But the most salient feature for example of the Harpie-Woman is the emotional get-in-your-face aspect. There will come a point, that is if we have the power, when our emotional influence fails and we must resort to constraint and imprisonment. Reprogramming. Psychiatric prisons and such. Idea-crimes when they cannot be corrected by ‘influence’ necessitate more drastic measures. You’d have to go into the errant mind and *correct* it.
But on what basis would you combat the ideas of a person like Spencer? Or any idea at all? Spencer is working in the idea realm, and so are the people associated with him. But they are unpopular ideas and ones that around which is a great deal of contention and also emotion. Instead of understanding his ideas, he is attacked at an emotional level.
There is nothing particularly to conclude from your approach. You are though part of a larger picture which is really really interesting and worth trying to understand. That picture is What is going on in our world and in the realm of thought and perception?
“Since you know very little, or nothing, of Spencer’s position, how could you deconstruct it rationally?”
I don’t intend to attempt to deconstruct it without learning more about it, ideally by talking with him directly and learning more about his ideas and where he got them. That’s how deconstruction works.
Sorry, it appears I have confused you as to my intentions and assumptions. The whole point of me going on about deconstruction was to assert to liberals that it would benefit everyone if they attempted to deconstruct ideas they didn’t like, instead of just decrying them. It’s not supposed to magically make them “win”. I think we’re on the same page as far as intellectual honesty and reasoned discussion is concerned.
Also, deconstruction or “Void” as a mindset isn’t actually static nothingness, but a process, same as any other mindset. The danger comes when it is used in an extreme fashion and leads to actual nihilism, which is where the opposite mindset, narrative (themed on “Sun”) comes in. Narrative builds stories, symbols, codes of conduct, and other semantic systems infused with meaning. It helps sustain conscious existence.
Ultimately, ideologies come from what people want. (Buddhism has the existential principle of “desire” as a central concept: Suffering comes from desire. Buddhists understand existence very well and have useful ideas, but while they would have us abnegate our desires, and thereby our selves, I see no reason to do that, as the positive feelings from being a person with desires outweighs the torments for me.)
Every sapient being, as far as I can tell, wants the world to be different in some way (even if that means changing it to make it more likely that the world stays otherwise the same). Every normative assertion, every prescriptive statement, every “ought”, comes from what some person or group of people wants. I wrote an article touching on this theory, that “Sin” can be literally any form of experience or control, because it just means a desire that someone can get addicted to. Good and evil come from whether or not one sacrifices one’s own desires to help others achieve theirs, or vice versa (with some caveats). Sooner or later, every ideology is judged based on how well it helps people get what they want, in terms of both magnitude and distribution.
Does that make sense?
Chris,
What evidence is there that Democrats, or any progressive, is persuadable through reason?
The answer is that you engage and learn where the issues are. Knowing your ‘enemy’ at least allows you to know where to defend against him. If you can interact, you can establish common ground and possibly persuade him.
Hence we are on this site. Ethics are common ground, and allow us to engage and understand each other. Even persuade: I have had my mind changed this week by a persuasive demonstration of fact on this site.
You are advocating fighting a straw man when you write someone off, as you will not listen to why someone feels the way they do.
Understanding is a three edge sword.
I’m willing to listen to you and many of the other conservatives here, and to find areas of agreement. I’m rarely willing to do the same with Alizia, because she is a white supremacist. I think that’s fair. I have no reason to believe trying to reason with Alizia is a productive use of my time.
“… and that is why you fail.” -Yoda
Chris, Alizia can be taxing to get through. And I am not saying you have to wade through her long posts to get the gist: she wants to understand what it means to be white. This is not good or bad of itself: the quest for knowledge (especially self knowledge) never is. It is how it is used.
If you do not at least get that, but simply pigeonhole anything she says, you cannot reach her to your viewpoint. Then you have a problem: no communication leads to fear.
“…fear leads to anger…anger leads to hate…hate leads to suffering. ” -Yoda
To Alizia, what it means to be white is to be culturally superior to nonwhites. She believes whites should have a separate ethnostate, and that all other races should do the same. That is not a viewpoint that a reasonable person would come to, so one can conclude Alizia is not a reasonable person. I admire EC’s determination to use reason to reach unreasonable people, I really do. But it isn’t something one can expect from everyone.
Chris, you’re using “reasonable” to mean “able to be reasoned with” and “only reaches conclusions that I have decided are reasonable”. Even ignoring the subjective nature of the latter connotation, those two connotations are entirely independent. A person can reach “unreasonable” conclusions and be reasoned with (Alizia), or reach “reasonable” conclusions and resist reasoned discussion (though that will almost always eventually lead to adopting unreasonable conclusions).
Do I expect everyone to learn to unravel unreasonable conclusions? Not the more complicated ones, no. Do I expect everyone to learn to reason with others? I expect them to try; it would really help. And of course, respect is something we should expect from everyone.
To Alizia, what it means to be white is to be culturally superior to nonwhites. She believes whites should have a separate ethnostate, and that all other races should do the same. That is not a viewpoint that a reasonable person would come to, so one can conclude Alizia is not a reasonable person. I admire EC’s determination to use reason to reach unreasonable people, I really do. But it isn’t something one can expect from everyone.
I think that Eurocentrism is, perhaps by definition, a deliberate choice to ally oneself with what one considers to be superior. I know that you and many people have issues with assigning superiority, and there is a great deal of negative animus associated with ‘White Supremacy’ which certain was, and still is in numerous ways, a powerful element in European identity and European anthropology. Briefly, what I can say, though I doubt you will be able to take it in and make use of it (my categories-of-concern are very very foreign to you), is that I am resolved to go back over all these things, all these ideas, and examine them all over again. The reason is simply: the assault on European identity that has come about through the European crisis which arose out of the crisis of the Second World War. One could also talk about encroaching nihilism in the late 1800s and, in fact, a host of different things. But my focus is on recovering European identity.
This is not a category of concern for you. In fact, moreover, you are one among many who work to undermine such identity, and you have all your *good* reasons for this. You represent to me for this an many other reasons that which I am struggling against. You have this strange notion that you are *reasonable* and are trying as hard as an apostle to *reason* with me, your identified unreasonable person. And many on this blog share your opinion. I overturn that table-of-assumption. A lift it up and flip it over. This is a metaphor of course. I overturn the table on which you have constructed your view of reality and your self-definition. That is what I call the ‘structure of the self’.
The actual fact is that the set of definitions I would refer to to define ‘White’ are much more involved, nuanced and complex than can be expressed in a few paragraphs. I use the term ‘European’ or ‘European descended’ and ‘European identity’ which is reference to a ‘fuzzy-set’ to borrow a genetics term. Yet there is, and very much so, a core there. I find that to get to that core, to be able to think about it, is a difficult thing to do because, as it happens, there are strong currents operating against it. So, on one hand I propose a ‘European Identity Movement’ (or manoeuvre), but at the same time I am aware that to make those definitions requires an enormous expenditure of energy in countering all the propositions, mostly emotionally-based, that people like you hold and inhabit (with a tremendous force because your self-identity is constructed in them).
The first order of business is in clarifying identity. And the second order is clarifying what, precisely, one serves. I have come to see that in essential terms I am a Christian-Catholic. I am highly self-aware of what it means to be a Jewish convert to Christianity. But you see what I have done is to renounce what I understand as a counter-productive rebelliousness and rebellion and I have made a conscious and willed choice to serve Europe. And in the sense that I refer to Europe (though this will sound outlandish and strange) I desire to serve the higher metaphysical world to which, once-upon-a-time, Europa was oriented. I write this and it all makes perfect sense to me yet many here seem to struggle with what I mean. But this is what I mean. It can all be explained. It is not immoral. It is essentially ethical. (And the value to be able to write here is to struggle against the idea-set that operates against this construct of identity as a willed project).
I do indeed believe that European states that now exist, filled with the various ethnicities of those nations, states and regions (the term ‘white’ is non-functional because it only came to exist when other ethnicities were brought in), I do believe that these nations (and by that I mean Europe generally) need to self-protect and reorient themselves around their own history, products and achievements. And it is my hope that this also includes a religious and (as I say) metaphysical renewal. When I refer to metaphysics it means reestablishing a relationship to an upper world, which is an invisible and non-physical realm. Simultaneously, it means to understand the *underworld* and the realm of dense material energies (the demonic to put it bluntly). The focus on the upper world is what defined Europe. It runs through all European categories, from end to end and from top to bottom.
The manoeuvre to recover identity, in the sense that I mean, is not an easy thing to define. It is an orientation, an induction, in fact it is a complete paideia. It an all be carefully explained. The issue is that there are few capable of hearing.
When you assert what is *reasonable* and *non-reasonable* I would politely suggest to you that you stop, turn the lens of examination around, and place it on yourself. What I suggest is entirely reasonable. It is reasoned, thought-through, is based in specific declarations and assertions that can be coherently expressed. I would suggest to you that you do not understand enough of these terms and categories, and also that there are specific reasons why this is so. I call that *programming* which comes about thorough impositions which have been installed in you and hundreds thousands and millions of people influenced …. to think unreasonedly.
None of this is easy material to grasp. It is not so much that what I say (and mean) is complex, it is that there is a problem among the *hearers*. ;-P
I admire EC’s determination to use reason to reach unreasonable people, I really do.
That is so cute….
“…if a well-known Muslim who advocated for the “peaceful ethnic cleansing” … believed that an equal number of Americans should die…”
Sparty, it would bother me not at all. His actions matter, not his speech. If he breaks some law, then arrest him. But if you do not engage him, understand why he feels this way, how will you counter him?
People around the world screech ‘Death to Americans’ with boring regularity. We act when they DO something about it, because we cannot see beforehand who actually will act on their rhetoric.
Progressives want to become thought police. Please hear me: that concept, once accepted, has always bitten those who started it. It has been tried. The first to be stood up against the wall (both metaphorically and sometimes physically) are the true believers. Then the tactic becomes a tool of oppression to keep people in line, as anyone can be accused of thought crime. You are trying to forge your chains before my eyes.
Bingo. And Great post.